Inclusive market systems development for donors

The Inclusive market systems development for donors e-learning programme is now open for applications.

The course is aimed at anyone involved in designing, procuring, managing or advising a market systems development programme from a donor perspective. Past participants have included FCDO, Sida, DFAT, ADA, SDC, Gatsby Africa, JICA, the World Bank, ILO, USAID and many more.

• More about the course

Content

• Rapid understanding of what MSD is and how to do it, so you know what to expect from implementers.
• Programme design - a clear process to understand parameters for programme design and the implications of the decisions made at this stage.
• Finding and selecting implementing partners - covering a wide range of different sourcing, partnership and procurement mechanisms.
• Managing and monitoring programme performance including formal results measurement frameworks and contracts as well as informal tactics to ensure your programme delivers.
• Communicating MSD to different audiences to help you make the case for pursuing a more sustainable approach to development.
• In addition to the core content, supplementary demand-driven sessions on recent courses have included a systems approach to impact investment, MSD in humanitarian settings, and how to evaluate systemic change.

Relevance

• For donors who take the course - whatever your role in a donor agency, the course will help you to design, manage or support more effective MSD programmes leading to larger scale more sustainable impact. Even if you're not in a position to commission MSD programmes, this course can help you to other types of programming towards improving their impact.
• For implementers who support their funders to take the course - a more supportive enabling environment to allow you to implement programme more effectively.

Delivery

• The course includes a mixture of self-led, instructor-led, and peer learning.
• There are six core modules with one week given to complete plus an ongoing coursework module.
• Each module typically take 2 hours to complete, so you'll have to be able to allocate an average of 2 hours per week over a seven week period, to include coursework review.
• There are three contact 'touchpoints' throughout the course for which you will need to be available, but there is continuous interaction though bespoke forum threads.
• Based on state-of-the-art e-learning development, the course includes many games, videos, coursework and quizzes as well as supplementary reading.

Additional Information:

• More about the course

The deadline for application is 17th September 2021 and places are limited.
The course fee is $750 and includes embedded consulting services from the Agora team. The course will begin on 11th October 2021 with the release of the first batch of materials, but you can start at any time in the following weeks. The course will end on 4th December 2021, although you will retain access to the course materials for one year after completing the course.