The role of development agencies in supporting improved intra- and inter-industry collaboration

This case study examines industry collaboration in the MarketMakers youth employment programme in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Where it works well, industry collaboration influences, shapes, and determines business practices within the industry and its supply chain. It may also succeed in impacting legislation, policies, and public investment relevant to the industry.

The paper is split into two parts:

1. It explains how fostering new means of industry collaboration became dominant in MarketMakers’ work, cutting across a substantial portion of the initiative’s intervention portfolio. It attempts to locate industry collaboration within the context of a diagnostic process. It proposes it as an essential function – or group of sub-functions (connectivity, insight, voice, visibility, and coordination) – that is instrumental in supporting industries to develop.
2. It presents a new set of lessons that can be learned from these experiences, drawing on four MarketMakers interventions where industry collaboration has been central to the intervention strategy.