MNGT-E1002 - Market-based Development in the Global South, Lecture, 6.9.2022-13.10.2022

Choosing a project geography

Many organizations are already undertaking market-based approaches. This project will leverage this fact by having you critically analyze the use (and misuse) of market-based interventions in a particular geography city, region, or country.  For instance, looking at how market-based development is used in Mexico City, in Amazonas region of Brazil, or in Uganda. You get to pick the location in which you are most interested. 

Given that I'd prefer you to identify the whole breadth of MBD activities in a given geography (as described below), I discourage you from picking a really big polity; e.g., don't pick Brazil, but instead choose a state (or two), or a specific city. I have no doubt that there are many different MBD interventions in Brazil, and the point of this project is not to have you do endless background research. Similarly, given all the internal differences in a country, trying to succinctly capture the state of a development in a whole country can be tricky.  It can be done, but I would discourage it for bigger countries.

Additionally, make sure that the place you choose to focus on can actually use MBD approaches.  E.g., picking an active conflict zone or a place with famine is not a good idea, as typically we'd have humanitarian aid there instead.

 I'm here to discuss the project ideas and help out.  The ultimate choice is yours, but please feel encouraged to run ideas past me.

 

Specific requirements

Embedded in this approach are five key elements. Elements 1 and 2 are sort of the background research, while elements 3 and 4 are more about your team's analysis. In contrast, element 5 is about your own team's reflection on the ethics and messiness of development. Of course, the information in all these sections will be interwoven.

Consider questions like:

• What is the current state of development of this context? Using background data from SDG metrics, and from other data sources will be espeically useful here.
• What do poverty rates look like? 
• How well developed are markets? 
• What are the 'problems' that market-based development could help address? 
• How has development been progressing in the past decade or two?
• What are the main industries in which people work? How much of the population relies on subsistence farming?

This should ultimately build towards an understanding of: what are the development needs of this place?  What is needed for this place to meet typical development goals as captured by the SDGs? 

Of course, there may be views of development that are not captured well by the SDGs, so feel free to argue for an alternative view.  However, keep in mind that given the global consensus on the SDGs as an approach to development, you'll face an uphill battle convincing anyone to abandon the SDGs.  A better place for this conversation may be in the fifth element, described below.

A finaly note about the levels at which you will have data. As noted above, I am encouraging you to stay away from choosing a whole country, favouring isntead a region or a large city. Of course, it is generally easiest to acquire data at the country level; e.g., SDG indicators are tracked for the country level.  So, in focusing on a region or city, you will have to sort of impute what the national level data means. Think of it this way: the national level data gives you a baseline for understanding a region/city, and you’ll have to use other data sources, or reasonable assumptions, to understand if a region/city is doing better or worse on an indicator than the country as a whole. For instance, rural areas are typically less developed than the national average, especially in terms of things like clean water access and educational attainments. 

The goal of this is to understand what - collectively - development organizations and businesses are trying to do to address the development needs of a specific location.  Are they relying on microfinance and entrepreneurship training?  Is the main focus on income generating activities?  Are there many different approaches?  Are they designing products for impoverished people?

I don't expect the main-text portion of this to take up too much space, but it is a critical foundation for your project. In addition to a main-text section summarizing your high-level findings, please be very sure to include an Appendix that has the following information on each intervention you identify, preferably designed as a table:

• Name
• Location
• Approximate number of participants
• Starting year
• Short description
• Web links to overview

The reason I ask for this is that I am slowly working with Fingo (The Finnish umbrella organization for development NGOs) to build a list of market-based development interventions in different places.  In the long-term, the goal is to use this information to help Finnish NGOs become more effective.

 

Now we're getting into the analysis.  Do the needs you identified in section 1 seem to mesh with the approaches being taken in section 2? What gaps are there?

In answering this, note that we can always want to see development organizations do more.  In many places in the world, there is no shortage of pressing development needs.  As such, it is tempting to fall back on the argument such as "by focusing on value chain upgrading, organizations are not going enough to foster local autonomy through entrepreneurship."  While potentially not wrong, this misses the core point: development organizations have limited time, money, and resources to use for market-based interventions.  So the question is not "what else should they be doing?" but instead is "is there something they should be doing instead of what they are currently doing?"

I intentionally leave this analysis open for you to take it in whichever direction you desire.  Remember though, at the core of this question is context…do the interventions meet the needs of the context?

 

Element 3 speaks to the general matching of interventions and development needs. Here though in element 4, we want to get more granular and look at specific interventions and how they are structured.

To this end, I want you to go in depth into at least three or four interventions. If you are a group of four, analyze two pairs of two different interventions, such as two microfinance interventions and two value-chain linkage interventions. If you are a group is three, choose three versions of the same basic type. 

There are two tasks coming from this.  The first is to focus on the interventions individually. Draw out an intervention diagram for each one, and create a theory of change. These theories of change and intervention diagrams will really help with the comparison mentioned below.  Identify how context (either through producing needs that require filling, or through producing challenges that need to be overcome) has shaped the nature of each intervention.  Also look at how the intervention is organized to include multiple actors and partnerships.

With this done, compare across the similar interventions (e.g., the two or three microfinance interventions).  For instance, how and why are the microfinance interventions structured differently?  Does this make sense to you?  Which one is "better"?  Why might they be structured differently…do they have different goals, or is this the result of being located in different contexts?  What lessons can be learned to make the basic intervention better?

You may also choose to use what we have learned about monitoring and evaluation to help you in this part.  This will help your report, but is not strictly necessary.

I don't have much specific guidance for this part of the report. Basically, I want to have an open part for you to muse about development in a more philosophical approach. Be critical, but also be realistic. Are you angered by the types of interventions you saw?  Do you worry that development is perpetuating neocolonialism?  What alternative do you offer? Feel free to also argue that, based on the interventions you studied, market-based development is a great thing to undertake.

I have no pre-determined preference for what you write about.  My only imperative is that you think critically and reflect philosophically on the content of your project.  Your own reflections and comments might be built upon here, and your questions and thoughts from class may also be a good starting point.

Challenge each other's ideas and be critical for this part; it will help make the overall product much better.

Frequently asked questions/clarifications

Can we include interventions that have recently ended?

Yes, this is OK.  Generally speaking, if something ended less than five years ago, it would be quite relevant.

We are finding that interventions seem to be a 'mix' of those covered in class. For instance, value chain upgrading interventions include microfinance. How do we analyze this?

There are two parts to this answer, depending on the part of project you are speaking about.  For part 2 (capturing all the interventions happening in your geography), probably just classify the intervention based on the dominant intervention. For instance, if it is value chain upgrading and there is some microfinance, it should be classified as value chain upgrading, because one cannot get the microfinance as a standalone product.

For part 4 of the project (deep dive analysis of some interventions), the main thing is to ensure that the core of the interventions are comparable. For instance, you could easily compare an intervention that has income generating activities at its core but also adds some microfinance, with another intervention that has income generating activities at its core but instead supplements this with market linkages.  Comparing these could be quite insightful, as it naturally brings up questions about the efficacy of these different structures.

We are only looking at one region in a country. Can we consider nationwide interventions, even if there is no specific information for our region?

First off, great idea to focus on a narrower geography.  It will make your life much easier.

And yes, you can definitely consider nationwide interventions.  Make some reasonable assumptions to help yourselves out, such as if an intervention has 10,000 participants nationwide, and your region has 15% of the population, then assume there are 1500 participants in your region. For assessing the structure and theory of change, it is highly likely that the intervention is nearly identical across the country; customization is quite rare.

Is intervention X/Y/Z an example of market-based development?

This question eludes easy answer.  The choice is ultimately yours. One way of thinking about this though is whether an intervention might better be classified as something else: as Big or Small development. If it better fits one of those descriptors, it probably is not MBD.

Another way of thinking about this is how markets are being used, and the revenue model behind the intervention.

What is the difference between part 3 and part 4?

Part 3 is looking at the overall geography: do the interventions you identified seem to meet the development needs?  Here, your analysis should focus on saying whether or not the MBD interventions - as a whole - seem to target the pressing needs.

Part 4 gets far more granular, and you're going to comments on the structuring of specific interventions.  Here, you'll draw out intervention diagrams and make Theories of Change, and use these to compare 3-4 interventions. 

One way of thinking of this is that part 3 is like taking a survey of all the trees in a forest; what is there, and are those trees helpful for biodiversity. Part 4 then looks at 3-4 specific trees and comments on their structure, their health, etc. Then, within part 4 you'll compare some maple trees, for example.

How many interventions should we identify for part 2?

Generally speaking, teams usually identify at least 12-15 interventions.  This might, for instance, involve 5 different microfinance organizations, and those five approaches are considered separately

What do we discuss in part 5?

The short answer, whatever you want.  Send Patrick an email if you need help working through potential ideas.

We have information at the national level, but we are looking at one specific region, can we still use it?

Yes, absolutely.  You can think of the national level data as the baseline starting point; in the absence of any other information, it is the best estimate of what is happening in your specific region.  To get more specific though, make some reasonable assumptions. For instance, if you are looking at a rural region, you'll know that poverty rates are probably higher than the country as a whole. Use whatever information or insights you have to 'customize' the national level data to your region.

Additionally, recognize that in many cases region-specific information will be lacking, so you'll have to rely on national-level data.

How 'old' is too old for a source?

Development data is not always updated as often as we want. Given that development happens slowly, anything in the last 10-15 years is probably helpful for your project.  It does of course depend on the specific country we are speaking about; development data from Libya 15 years ago is not likely to be too helpful nowadays, given the revolution and political turmoil that has happened since then.