Learning from our East Africa workshop

Ashley Aarons shares what he learnt on current practices in market system development.

There is a big appetite among market systems practitioners for local knowledge sharing, as we saw at our recent workshop in Tanzania. Working together with the Gatsby Foundation and the Aga Khan Foundation, the workshop brought together 37 participants from 17 programmes in 7 East African countries to share their experiences.

For me, what really set the event apart from others was the degree of sharing and emerging goodwill between programmes. Based on learning from the DCED’s M4P peer event in 2013 (download pdf), the workshop did not target senior programme management who often have large budgets for training and travel, and their own networks of people they can go to for advice. Instead the participants were frontline staff who implement market systems interventions but had limited knowledge about similar work in other countries. Secondly, rather than focusing on success stories or the theory of market system development, participants were encouraged to share challenges and emerging good practice. The organisers worked hard to ensure the right dynamics were there to support open sharing.

The main takeaway for me was on the state of the sector. The workshop covered six themes based on the most recurrent challenges among participants. I was struck by the impressive experience practitioners had for some of these themes and how this contrasted with significant knowledge gaps in others. The key insights were on:

Extensive experience in collaborating with businesses: In general, the programmes represented had   extensive experience and skills in designing and implementing effective collaborations with business. For example, participants stressed the importance of understanding business incentives and talking to these rather than poverty reduction; managing interventions flexibly and adaptively; and being trusted to respect business confidentiality. The challenges they highlighted included designing interventions in thin markets and deciding what partnership agreements and cost shares should look like.  

Promising progress on programmes learning effectively: Exciting approaches were introduced to help programmes stay attuned to market changes and ensure effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems (for instance, see recently published guidance from the Business Innovation Facility 2 on market analysis). Participants stressed that market assessment and M&E are not one-off activities but need to be continuous. Furthermore, they should be team wide activities, not just for specialists. However, they are often still delegated to specialists. Programmes need to ensure team wide buy-in and that responsibility and sufficient resources are allocated to train staff on how to carry out these activities.

Knowledge gaps on reaching marginalised groups and scaling-up: Promising examples and insights were shared such as one programme’s use of a ‘network and noise’ team to promote the replication of successful new inclusive business behaviours. But significant challenges remain. Many of the participating programmes are still establishing themselves and hadn't unpacked how to reach the most marginalised groups or planned this from the beginning of programme design. There was also limited experience to share on scaling up. This was due in part to differences in definitions and confusion over concepts, and also to the youth of the programmes ‒ many of which were still at the piloting intervention stage.

Next steps 

As a group we are looking at how to keep the workshop energy and enthusiasm going, and how best to help fill the knowledge gaps outlined above. Future events are being considered both at the front line implementer level and at a more senior programme management and donor level. If you are keen to be involved please let me know. 

The true test of the event will be whether the workshop participants stay in touch and turn to each other when they face professional challenges or have insights to share. There are promising early signs.

Read the workshop report for more.

Ashley Aarons is the BEAM Exchange lead on policy and practitioner learning.