Doing more business and less aid

How the Road to Jobs (R2J) programme has implemented an MSD approach in a fragile setting to create more and better jobs that could be sustained and reach scale.

Afghanistan is still engaged in a war that has lasted a generation. Foreign aid, which had been keeping the government propped up, has continuously promoted a business culture of government reliance rather than innovation and independence. The country continuously ranks as one of the most corrupt in the world and the investment climate for new business opportunities is poor.

It is one of the youngest countries in the world and has over 400,000 youth joining a stagnant economy’s labour force each year. The number of youth who are unemployed, under-employed or vulnerably employed grows by the day.

This project was designed to address key constraints and strengthen the agriculture and manufacturing sector challenges in northern Afghanistan such that government and businesses could innovate, compete and create more and better jobs for those who need them most. 

This brief describes how the project navigated through early challenges to learn and improve to get businesses, government and business associations on board with new ways of working and initiate systemic changes.

• BEAM / ILO webinar on MSD business models: how to build competency in business and financial analysis