Browse recent blogs of interest to the Marketlinks community. Use the search box or the filters on the left-hand side to refine the listing of blogs by keyword, topic, and/or region/country.
This January, Marketlinks Explores the Role of eCommerce in Advancing Development Outcomes
This post was authored by Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group and Technical Director, eTrade Alliance. This January, the Alliance for eTrade Development ("eTrade Alliance") will be taking over Marketlinks, sharing experiences from its two years of implementation and making the case for why enabling ecommerce should be at the forefront of the development agenda.
(-) Finance (532)
(-) Women's Economic Empowerment (223)
(-) Markets in Crises (100)
Enabling Environment (324)
Market Facilitation (297)
Adaptive Management (233)
Markets and Trade (204)
Private Sector Engagement (2)
Sub-Saharan Africa (138)
Asia and Pacific (60)
Latin America and the Caribbean (38)
Middle East and North Africa (18)
Europe and Eurasia (11)
Women's Leadership in Small & Medium Enterprises (WLSME) (31)
Principled Interest (20)
Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) (12)
Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation & Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) (8)
The Market Corner (2)
(-) Women's Economic Empowerment
(-) Markets in Crises
WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Introducing Strategies for Closing the Gender Digital Divide
"All technology has potential when modeled in the vacuum of our whiteboards and proposals," remarks Revi Sterling, Director of the USAID WomenConnect Challenge (WCC). Shrewdly cutting to the chase, Sterling adds: "[But] rural smallholder farmer women do not live in vacuums." In other words: for digital technologies to be part of any development solution, practitioners must first address the myriad of real-life barriers and inequities surrounding technology use.
Not All Traditional Investment Models Work for Emerging Markets. It's Time to Test New Ones.
In emerging markets, entrepreneurs of growth-stage companies often struggle to access financing. Debt is hard to come by and securing equity often requires giving up significant company ownership in return.
Development Pros: You Don't Need to be a Finance Expert to Use Catalytic Funding
An abridged version of this article was published in Devex. Read it here. By Vanessa Holcomb Mann and Jessamy Nichols, USAID INVEST Donors like USAID have added a powerful tool to their toolbox: catalytic funding.
Investing in Black Entrepreneurs: A South African Fund Leads the Way
By Yasmine Williams, INVEST Senior Communications Advisor South Africa is home to millions of small and medium-sized enterprises. These businesses create jobs and drive economic growth — they are vibrant, innovative, and undercapitalized.
5 Things You Need to Know About Engaging the Private Sector in Public Goods
By Lauren Yang, USAID INVEST Communications
Women Investing in Women in Senegal: A Look at How One Fund is Using Gender Lens Investing to Reach Women-Led Businesses in West Africa
Many women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in West Africa fall into the "missing middle." They are too large for funding from microfinance institutions and too small and risky for banks and other sources of traditional finance. WIC Capital, a $20 million investment fund managed by the Women's Investment Club Senegal, seeks to exclusively target women-led, early-stage businesses in West Africa. 
Institutional Investor Emphasizes the Advantages of Investing in Emerging Markets Across Africa
Institutional investors like pension funds have deep pools of capital. If even a small percentage were invested in African infrastructure, it would go a long way towards helping African countries finance their own development, and providing U.S. investors with higher returns than what is possible in developed markets.
Technical Assistance: A Game Changer for Gender Lens Investing?
This post was written by Lauren Yang, USAID INVEST Communications. Gender Lens Investing has gained momentum as a means to push for a more equitable spread of capital, generating much-needed financial returns and benefits for women. However, the need goes beyond just getting capital into the hands of women — how can businesses make gender equity not merely an add-on, but a fully integrated part of their operations?
How One Pension Fund Identified Investment Opportunities in Africa
By Emily Langhorne, USAID INVEST In 2019, Chicago Public School Teachers' Pension and Retirement Fund made its first commitments on the African continent. Since 2017, Chief Investment Officer Angela Miller-May participated in the U.S. Government's Mobilizing Institutional Investors to Develop Africa's Infrastructure (MiDA) Program. Through the program, Miller-May learned about the continent's investment opportunities, and, for the first time in her life, she visited Africa.
Why Investing in Emerging Markets is a Win for Investors and African Companies
CEO of Development Partners International (DPI) Runa Alam talks about the history of Pan-African private equity, the potential for institutional capital to drive the continent's development, and the role of the Prosper Africa initiative in catalyzing two-way trade and investment between the United States and African nations.
This Bond Could Be a Breakthrough in Combatting West Africa's Housing Shortage
For most West Africans, homeownership is out of reach. Rapid population growth and urbanization have created a housing shortage, exacerbated by the lack of access to affordable mortgage loans to finance purchases. With support from USAID INVEST, the Caisse Regionale de Refinancement Hypothecaire (CRRH) is bringing a new investment opportunity to U.S. markets that offers investors attractive financial and social returns — and West Africans the resources to make homeownership a reality. By Lauren Yang, INVEST Communications Advisor
Financial Leverage is not a Good Measure of Impact. Here is What to Use Instead
INVEST and Dalberg developed a new guidance note to support USAID staff, providing a brief overview of how USAID can facilitate blended finance activities and ensure they achieve both additionality and human impact.
Are We Too Focused on Access to Credit? Agent Banks Boost Resiliency During COVID-19 Pandemic
In early 2020, the Feed the Future Bangladesh Rice and Diversified Crops Activity, funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA, began an assessment to understand how the Activity could increase financial access for agricultural small- and medium-sized enterprises (agri-SMEs) in Bangladesh during COVID-19. The assessment originally focused on opportunities for the Activity to increase financial access through agent banks during the pandemic.
Private Sector Engagement in the Bajo Cauca Region of Colombia
By Erin Magee, Regional Advisor, Latin America & the Caribbean, USAID/Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance For Diana Arismendy Schroeder, establishing a community-centered approach is critical when working in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
Global Development Alliances: Building on Twenty Years of Co-creating and Delivering Development Results
The private sector is a powerful force in driving economic growth, creating jobs, and boosting opportunities that improve the lives of people and communities worldwide. USAID has partnered with companies and investors to solve some of the world's toughest challenges since its founding in 1960.
What's Different about Doing PSE in Fragile and Conflict-affected Situations? Four Key Considerations
Across engagement efforts in the field, we've seen firsthand how some private sector actors can mitigate drivers of instability and conflict by creating jobs, providing essential goods, increasing financial inclusion, developing infrastructure, advocating for peace and economic stability, and promoting other forms of inclusive economic development.
The Market Corner: Market Systems Development in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations
This post is the second installment in Marketlinks' new blog series, The Market Corner, which explores market systems development (MSD) implementation in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS) during the month of October.
The Market Corner: Fresh Perspectives for Development Leaders
A new blog series explores the opportunities and challenges market systems development practitioners face working side-by-side with humanitarian actors in fragile and conflict-affected situations.
The Importance of Resilience Thinking in Market System Development Programs
This post was written by Dan Hudner, Market System Resilience Measurement Lead at Mercy Corps.
Pension Funds Could Close the SDG Gap. What's Holding Them Back?
Pension funds and other institutional investors hold more than $100 trillion in assets, and their stakeholders are increasingly interested in utilizing those funds to make socially responsible investments. At the same time, countries in Africa are growing fast — but risk falling behind if they can't finance the necessary infrastructure to support their growth. On the surface, it would seem like a perfect union of returns and social responsibility. Yet only a fraction of institutional investors hold assets in developing countries. What is holding them back?
This October, Marketlinks Explores Private Sector Engagement in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings
In collaboration with USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, Marketlinks is exploring private sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected settings during October.
Preparing for the Next Disaster: Partnering with the Local Private Sector for Sustainable Results
When Hurricane Dorian struck The Bahamas in 2019, USAID led and coordinated the U.S. Government's disaster response efforts, deploying an elite disaster team and providing nearly $34 million in humanitarian assistance.
Making a Measure: Capturing Vendor Business Health in Local Markets
By Clare Clingain and Emily Sloane, International Rescue Committee (IRC) If you want to understand something, you probably need to measure it – and measure it well. Chances are, someone has already tried to measure what you want to examine, but if that's not the case, it's important to design a tool that's fit for the intended purpose and to test it out in multiple contexts.
Unlocking Capital for Women Entrepreneurs Can Improve Livelihoods In Developing Countries: A Look at Kenya
Jane Wangige is a rice farmer in Kirinyaga County who has made money and improved her family's livelihood from her rice farm. Her business prospered due to her membership in Mwea Rice Growers Multipurpose Co-operative Society (MRGM). MRGM is a farmer's cooperative society that has accessed financing from USAID's Kenya Investment Mechanism (KIM)—or specifically, a KIM partner financial institution, Co-operative Bank of Kenya.
Using a Systems Approach to Adapt to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Uganda
In March 2020, the Government of Uganda introduced a series of preventative measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country. These measures, including the closure of businesses and restriction of movement, were anticipated to have an impact on the economy and on agricultural production. USAID/Uganda was interested in understanding the impact of COVID-19 and these government measures on the agricultural market system, to anticipate how resilient the system would be and to identify opportunities to adapt existing programming or introduce new emergency measures.