This document summarises a discussion between practitioners in MaFI between July and November 2010. The discussion is centred around projects that use a light-touch facilitation approach and its ability to achieve results on a large scale. It is felt that although projects initially intend to facilitate change from within the private sector without using subsidies, it can be difficult to balance long-term change with shorter-term pressures to reach high target numbers of beneficiaries. Facilitation, it is argued, leads to change over long periods of time that can be difficult to measure (e.g. strengthened relationships or trust) and donor requirements and indicators do not always align with these challenges and factors. (Final version finalised in May 2011).

1. Hannah Schiff
Can You Reach Scale Using Facilitation?
MaFI Member-Led Discussion Synthesis
This document summarises a discussion between practitioners in the
Market Facilitation Initiative (MaFI) between July and November 2010.
The discussion is centred around projects that use a light-touch facilitation
approach and its ability to achieve results on a large scale. It is felt that
although projects initially intend to facilitate change from within the
private sector without using subsidies, it can be difficult to balance long-
term change with shorter-term pressures to reach high target numbers of
beneficiaries. Facilitation, it is argued, leads to change over long periods of
time that can be difficult to measure (e.g. strengthened relationships or
trust) and donor requirements and indicators do not always align with Hannah Schiff is a value
these challenges and factors. chain development specialist
at ACDI/VOCA. Based in
Hannah Schiff, the initiator of the discussion, asks whether other Washington, DC, Hannah
practitioners have experienced projects that have achieved scale through has conducted value chain
facilitation and how they dealt with the pressure to meet targets without research and facilitated
deviating from market facilitation principles. trainings on systems
approaches in Ecuador,
Managing Donor Expectations and Perceptions India, Kenya, Ethiopia,
Mozambique, Paraguay
A key point made early in the discussion was the need to manage donor and Tanzania.
expectations and perceptions throughout market-led projects. Kamran
Niazi noted that the donor-funded agency for which he works divided
their activities into two categories:
brief
 Short-term market activities which would meet numbers and make
headlines. More focused on individuals rather than groups.
 Longer-term market activities which had a more successful and positive
impact on the overall sector or clusters.
Some USAID-funded projects also follow similar paths, often referred as a
“portfolio approach” in which risks are spread through a variety of
activities. Rajiv Pradhan drew from his experiences and recognized that
when targets are clear in the beginning and the pilot and scale-up models
contain clear entry and exit points, there is more understanding from the
clients. Even when donors understand the needs of a facilitation
approach, time frames often remain a difficult issue. Those in the field
recognize that results based on pure facilitation may come long after the
standard time scale of projects (3 years). Additionally Rajiv points out that
‘smart subsidies’ can help to speed up results during market facilitationi.
What is needed is improvisation and adaptation of market
facilitation principles rather than pure adherence to the guiding
principles. There is a consensus that there is a need to advocate for
longer and more flexible project time frames.
November 2010

2. Targeting the Right People business. It will take a significant period of time to
find out whether change happened at the point
Another major discussion point was the need to where it was intended (the microenterprise level).
target the right group of people in a market system
to achieve scale. Shawn Cunningham argued that There is a need to go back to basics when planning
facilitation can lead to scale on some conditions. He and designing projects and ask the question: “What
takes a “transaction” approach, asking certain do we want to achieve?” Mary Morgan argued
questions and allowing market actors (“transactees”) that attribution should be an embedded assumption
within the system to find the answers. Questions when dealing with large-scale projects. Markets are
include: dynamic and respond to many factors beyond
supply and demand such as weather changes,
 What is needed to enable more transactions? fluctuations in disposable incomes, etc. Mary
argued that if a project leaves an overall market
 How can costs of transactions be reduced?
system strengthened to enable disenfranchised
 How do people who succeed in this sector transact? people to have access to goods and services as
consumers and suppliers, then attribution to the
He also noted that “it is impossible to reach scale
project should be assumed. Mary went on to say
when the interventions are not done in a systemic
that for her the beauty of value chain development
way, which in this case means that there is a clear
is the ability to work anywhere in the market chain
distinction between the beneficiaries and the target
focusing on bottlenecks to improve access to
levers that we must leverage.” For Shawn,
markets.
beneficiaries are those whose circumstances have
changed for the better due to facilitation, whereas
Hannah Schiff raised doubts that attribution should
target groups are those who can effect or shape that
be assumed when large-scale changes are seen in a
specific change.
market system in which a project works. In impact
assessment terms, attribution requires a
Rajiv Pradhan identified advantages and
counterfactual to understand what change may
disadvantages of this perspective. He noted that this
have happened if the project did not exist. Because
approach uses “leverage points” to reach scale, and is
of the interconnected systems involved and the
therefore cost-effective. It must be remembered that
constantly changing contexts, this is rarely possible
as scale increases, different market systems may
to know. There was consensus that measuring the
become more important. For example, if a project is
results of market system development projects
trying to strengthen the provision of information
remains a challenge.
through input suppliers, it may need to look at who
has the incentive to train employees of the input
supply companies, thus entering the training market
Measuring Scale in Facilitation
system rather than the information market system. Projects
The disadvantage is that we are often far from the
“beneficiaries,” and this leads to criticism about the In further discussion on measuring project impact,
attribution of the intervention. However, as Rajiv Mary Morgan identified two main challenges: lack
pointed out, attribution should not be a major of capacity and limited resources. Control groups
concern if change was achieved, as change was the and quasi experimental models for measurement
main priority. are critical to the process, but project budget
constraints often prevent these from being
Ruchi Prasad provided an interesting example from conducted. Results measurement, a methodology
Kerala, where a group of management professionals that has been tested in various contexts, has been
are currently delivering basic business management able to measure attribution. The Value Chain
training to microenterprise consultants (MECs). The Initiative at SEEP has integrated the Results
latter are then expected to pass on their new Measurement methodology in all their projects, and
knowledge to a larger group of MECs. These MECs this should give the field a large amount of
are expected to support women who run information regarding attribution and direct impact
microenterprises and help them grow/sustain their of market development investments.
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3. Hannah highlighted an impact assessment team impact assessment practice is linear and
that is advocating for increased resources for mechanistic assumptions such as clear casual links;
evaluation centralized within USAID rather than direct, proportional relations between inputs and
impact assessments being funded through project outputs and a static system that does not react to
budgets. The rationale for this approach is twofold: project assessments. This linear paradigm cannot
cope with the nature of complex, open and
1. Impact assessments could then be done by adaptive systems.
independent entities rather than the projects
themselves. Some good practices of facilitation are at odds with
current impact assessment practice. For example,
2. Due to budgetary constraints it would be better for self-selection of leading actors against randomized
the evaluation group within the agency to decide on trials; need for scale up and diffusion of
a sample of projects to evaluate that are innovations against isolated control groups and our
representative of a certain model. role as facilitators against the need to assess “our”
direct impacts on the system. Lucho noted there
Marcus Jenal noted that two factors must be taken are two options: to ride the turtle till it bursts or to
into account regarding impact assessments and ride a horse. The problem with impact assessment
attribution: has more to do with the framework than with
resources. There is a need to rethink afresh about
1. The effect of the project on the system. This is very how we measure impact, taking as a starting point
hard to measure from an external viewpoint as it the nature and characteristics of complex adaptive
takes a long time to understand the system. systems.
Therefore the DCED standard is giving more
thrust on internal monitoring systems instead of Acknowledgements
external, one-time evaluations.
Special thanks to Hannah Schiff for creating and
2. Impact assessments using semi-experimental spurring the discussion.
designs are also important to evaluate if there is a
change in beneficiary level. These two instruments To the following MaFI members for contributing
together offer information on what actually to the discussion:
changes at the beneficiary level and whether these
changes were caused by the project.  Kamran Niazi
 Rajiv Pradhan
There is also a growing consensus amongst  Shawn Cunningham
practitioners within the discussion that there is a  Marcus Jenal
need to include more than just direct beneficiaries  Mary Morgan
in the measurement of scale within projects that use  Ruchi Prasad
facilitation techniques. Rajiv Pradhan put forward  Ravinder Kumar
the need to identify the various enterprises as well.  Scott Merrill
He goes on saying that since we are talking of  Mohammad Shahroz Jalil
service delivery to move markets, identifying the  Luis E. Osorio-Cortes
different levels of enterprises and the impact they
have would be great to assess. Thanks also to Jack Matthews for producing the
first synthesis draft and to David Brownjohn for
Lucho Osorio-Cortes made the analogy of impact the graphic design.
assessment in market systems development as the
hare and the turtle. The intervention discourse is Technical support: Practical Action.
evolving from linear, top down, direct provision iSee MaFI’s Online Synthesis on Smart Subsidies for
into systematic, participatory and facilitative. This Agriculture Knowledge and Information Services at:
evolution is happening faster in intervention than http://slidesha.re/mafisubsidies
in the impact assessment field. The “turtle” of
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