Marketlinks

Northern Kenya has long faced a scarcity of clean drinking water, posing significant challenges to community health and economic development.

Underdeveloped infrastructure and services, like reliable and safe pipe-borne water, have intensified the region's isolation and further hindered its economic potential.

In response to these issues, Feed the Future Kenya USAID Kuza (ACDI/VOCA) established the Impact for Northern Kenya Fund ("the Fund"), a $38 million impact investing vehicle designed to provide catalytic capital to financial institutions and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the potential to drive economic and social growth.

Read more about this important program in here ⬇️
https://ow.ly/rSbC50UvczA

🎉 Tomorrow! 🎉

Join a panel from DevTech Systems, Inc. and USAID - US Agency for International Development tomorrow, January 15, 2025, at 10:00am ET.

This webinar will discuss an assessment of a pilot payment for environmental services project in the .

Learn about the pilot program's public financial management practices, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and .

Register to Attend Here ⬇️
https://www.marketlinks.org/events/assessment-pilot-payment-environmental-services-project-dominican-republic-and

Running a business as a couple can be incredibly rewarding, allowing partners to combine their strengths, shared vision, and passion for success.

However, navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship together can pose unique challenges, with conflicts arising from differences in management styles, communication preferences, roles and responsibilities, and work-life balance.

Furthermore, traditional gender roles often limit women's full participation in decision-making and income generating activities.

Case in point: James and Patricia are a couple who own a pork butchery in Rwanda’s Gakenke district. In the past, James made most business decisions without consulting his wife, which led to frequent disagreements due to lack of transparency of business earnings.

To address challenges for couples like James and Patricia, Feed the Future's Orora Wihaze Activity teamed up with RWAMREC - Rwanda Men's Resource Center to provide specialized six-month training programs to couples in animal-sourced food businesses.

Read more about their new six month training program here ⬇️
https://ow.ly/ZzqA50Uvbhz.

📍 Event Reminder! 📍

Join a panel from DevTech Systems, Inc. and USAID - US Agency for International Development on January 15, 2024, at 10:00am ET. This webinar will focus on an assessment of a pilot payment for environmental services project in the .

A pilot project for payments for environmental services (PES) began in 2011 in the Yaque del Norte River Basin, the largest watershed in the DR.

The USAID-funded Fiscal Accountability and Sustainable Trade (FAST) Activity assessed the pilot’s public financial management practices, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and and provided a recommendation for a future national PES program.

Register to Attend Here ⬇️
https://www.marketlinks.org/events/assessment-pilot-payment-environmental-services-project-dominican-republic-and

🥁 Drumroll please... It's finally time to announce our number one spot on Marketlinks ! 🥁

And it might surprise you...

The number one most viewed contribution to the site wasn't a blog... it was this resource: "What is a Causal Loop Diagram and What is it Good For?"

Not only is it a resource, but it's a resource that was first published in 2019!

So... what is a Causal Loop Diagram, and what IS it good for?

Click below to find out, and see why this has been a most viewed resource for the past five years ⬇️

https://ow.ly/tCXi50UuGsZ

🎉 Happy New Years from ! We're wishing everyone a happy and peaceful evening to all who are celebrating. Cheers to a great 2025! 🎉

🎶 Introducing Marketlinks ! 🎶

We are counting down our top ten most viewed contributions on the site in 2024.

This blog features several important topics the Marketlinks site likes to highlight including and .

It's only been live on the site for 3 months, so how has, "Innovative Solutions for Empowering Rural Women in MENA: Leveraging Water, Technology, and Holistic Approaches," sprinted to the top of our list?

Click below to find out for yourself ⬇️
https://ow.ly/iczW50UtTki

🎶 Introducing Marketlinks ! 🎶

We are counting down our top ten most viewed contributions on the site in 2024.

This blog post has been among our most viewed each year since 2022!

Why is everyone so interested in our # 5 most viewed blog post, "Farmer Cooperatives in the Boast Key Advantage: Knowing the Local Context,"?

Click below to find out for yourself ⬇️
https://ow.ly/hzV150UnWty.

🎶 Introducing Marketlinks ! 🎶

We are counting down our top ten most viewed contributions on the site in 2024.

Blog post, "What Do We Know about the Impacts and Social Return on Investment (SROI) of Peacebuilding Interventions," is our 7th most viewed contribution of 2024.

Read more about programs and their around the world here ⬇️

https://www.marketlinks.org/blogs/what-do-we-know-about-impacts-and-social-return-investment-sroi-peacebuilding-interventions

🚨 Event Alert! 🚨

A pilot project for payments for environmental services (PES) began in 2011 in the Yaque del Norte River Basin, the largest watershed in the .

The USAID - US Agency for International Development-funded Fiscal Accountability and Sustainable Trade (FAST) Activity assessed the pilot’s public financial management practices, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and financial sustainability and provided recommendations for a future national PES program.

Join us on January 15, 2024, at 10:00am ET for a discussion of lessons learned from the pilot project and recommendations for a national program.

Sign Up Here ⬇️
https://www.marketlinks.org/events/assessment-pilot-payment-environmental-services-project-dominican-republic-and

🎶 Introducing Marketlinks ! 🎶

We are counting down our top ten most viewed contributions on the site in 2024.

Starting with # 10: "Case Study Series: Women-Inclusive Return on Investment (WI-ROI)"

This resource highlights several case studies on inclusive , and was published by Feed the Future on March 25, 2024. Click the link below to read the full resource.

And stay tuned to our LinkedIn account to see which blogs and resources were the most viewed this year. Any guesses for which blog has been trending since 2022?

Read the full resource ⬇️
https://www.marketlinks.org/resources/document/case-study-series-women-inclusive-return-investment-wi-roi

are ecosystems - open, dynamic, adaptive, and can be predictable if and when all the parameters affecting their performance are known.

This is a big IF, and regularly, we find ourselves thinking the algorithms of the London and New York Stock Exchanges can be applied to the vagaries of secondary towns in arid, and semi-arid areas, where the rains are ever more erratic and patterns have become further disrupted.

The challenge is to work beyond the traditional linear, often mechanistic, views of markets and value chains, calling for a more fluid and holistic way of thinking.

In the , this challenge is manifested as complex dynamics with a multiplicity of factors impacting livelihoods, well-being, and how we are to take forward market development.

Read more about applying complexity thinking to here ⬇️

Can We Apply Complexity Thinking to Market Systems Development? Markets are ecosystems - open, dynamic, adaptive, can be