In recent years, agriculture-related market systems development (MSD) activities have engaged the private sector to integrate women and youth in market-led priority areas such as poverty reduction and improved employment. The private sector is a source of jobs and skill-building opportunities and can generate opportunities for women and youth for engagement in higher value parts of a value chain or sector. To better understand the tactics, outcomes and challenges of including women and youth in MSD activities, the Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) Program conducted a groundbreaking landscape analysis and four case studies. An important learning from this analysis was how MSD programs can integrate the private sector to advance inclusion of women and youth in agriculture, resulting in mutually beneficial outcomes,[1] such as strengthening core business functions, reaching new markets or increasing resilience, competitiveness and profitability while promoting inclusion across markets, communities and households. Key factors the landscape analysis identified as central to identifying and developing opportunities within market systems and building private sector buy-in to lead and sustain interventions included the importance of (1) selecting diverse and committed market actors as partners, (2) building and evaluating the business case for inclusion, and (3) promoting partner ownership of the inclusion intervention.

1. Select diverse and committed market actors as partners.

Selecting the right sectors to achieve outcomes for women and male and female youth was found to be highly important during activity design. This approach often goes beyond looking at where women and youth currently participate and assessing end markets and value chain upgrades that can bring about specific inclusive opportunities. Using multiple strategies and approaches may be required to attract more diverse partners and create various points of entry or expansion into new or upgraded roles for women and youth.

There has been increased reflection on and experience in moving women into non-traditional sectors and leadership roles, including moving women into new functions within the value chain and roles with low female participation, particularly in non-traditional jobs.

An example of this is ÉLAN RDC, a private sector development program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that worked with the private sector to design, develop and implement new business models that increased incomes, created jobs and lowered prices for those most vulnerable within the economic system. The market system focus included grains and horticulture, specialty crops, renewable energy, finance, cross-border trade and transport. ÉLAN RDC developed a role-change framework to give staff a vision of where and how changes can happen, as well as a sector-specific understanding of role changes that particular partnerships and interventions target. ÉLAN RDC identified this as a significant departure from many MSD programs, as it goes beyond women’s participation and incremental income increases toward more meaningful changes to women’s positions within market systems.

2. Build the business case for inclusion.

An inclusive business case means demonstrating the business benefits, or what added company value could be gained, by integrating inclusion. This could look like steps to better incorporate women as suppliers, customers or employees. Although the context for the business case varies greatly, how it is built and communicated was consistently found to be critical to building successful partnerships to promote inclusive market development. Private sector partners must be involved in developing an evidence-based business case to ensure that they see a market-based incentive to engage and that the opportunity is framed in terms of improved business performance.

PRISMA, an MSD activity that works to reduce poverty by fostering inclusive economic growth in the agriculture, horticulture, livestock and aquaculture sectors, used information on men and women to make the business case to companies that a need existed for a gendered marketing strategy for more customized customer research. PRISMA suggested marketing strategies to partners informed by gender analysis to resolve challenges in marketing products stemming from gender-related constraints. It developed an evidence-based approach to gather data on women’s roles and decision-making, then strengthened the feedback loop from baseline and impact assessments to prove and improve the business case to partners to include women.

Building convincing cases that clearly align business incentives with development outcomes requires ongoing evaluation and measurement. The activities featured in the analysis report highlighted a need for more consistent and strategic use of data to prove and improve the business case for upgrading the role of youth and women in market systems and adapt strategies to optimize results. 

3. Create partner buy-in and staff ownership of the inclusion intervention. 

Internal capacity-strengthening, such as strengthening knowledge and skills within the organization, and staff ownership were found to be critical, and need to happen before partners buy in to operationalize successful gender strategies with private sector partners. In addition to demonstrating how businesses could benefit from taking steps to integrate inclusion, partner co-ownership over the strategy, design and scaling efforts in the co-creation phase(s) can deepen private sector buy-in.

For example, Feed the Future Youth Leadership for Agriculture (YLA) took a “design in reverse” strategy, where it worked with market actors to co-create interventions by identifying potential pain points in the engagement of youth. It then co-designed value-add propositions to allow partners to benefit from YLA support to maximize profit and achieve sustained growth. Reportedly, this approach eliminated the need to chase funding to comply with YLA indicators and instead aligned market actor business performance indicators to meet contractual deliverables. 

Monitoring intervention outcomes and sharing results with the private sector and other partners allows them to see the benefits in concrete, quantitative terms. This solidifies partners’ belief in the intervention and, ultimately, builds their accountability for inclusion results. Activities that allowed market actors to own data management and decision-making processes accelerated buy-in and win-win outcomes.

The landscape analysis and featured case studies demonstrate that diverse partner selection, building and communicating the inclusive business case, and partner buy-in and ownership are critical for successfully integrating inclusion in market systems partnerships.