Attached here below you can find the promotional flyer of the Seminar about Sustainable Livelihoods and Pro-Poor market Development

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	SLA M4P seminar flyer - with keynote speaker - public - 27 May 2009 (2).doc	108.5 KB

Thanks Lucho for opening the space for this discussion.

This seminar on SLA and Pro-poor Market Development is one of a series of seminars funded by ESRC and convened by the IDS Livelihoods Network Secretariat and partners (University of Bath, University of Bradford, Practical Action and Khanya-aicdd).

We are very pleased to be able to collaborate with SEEP/MaFI on this particular seminar, and to have the online discussion hosted by SEEP. If you would like to get a flavour of the online and face-to-face discussions and outputs from other seminars in the series, please have a look at the ESRC SLA seminar group on http://community.eldis.org/sla

We look forward to an active discussion feeding your burning questions and key comments into the seminar itself on 21st July.

Helen
Manager – Livelihoods Connect
www.eldis.org/go/livelihoods

Dear MaFI Members: The organisers of the ESRC Seminar on Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches and Pro-Poor Market Development are looking for one exceptional case based on field experiences.

The case should ideally address the following question:

“How effective have pro-poor market development approaches been in developing sustainable and scalable strategies for livelihoods promotion and what are the lessons and insights that this work has generated?”

Travel and accommodation costs of the speaker will be covered by the Seminar.

Selection Criteria:

• How well the case addresses the question above
• The case must describe and analyse experiences from one or more low-income countries.
• The case does not need to be written in an academic format but must be properly documented
• The case must be grounded on field experiences
• The speaker must have good presentation skills to convey the information clearly and promote discussion amongst the audience

If you are interested please send a short bio and a short description of the case to Dr. Susan Johnson before the 23rd June: s.z.johnson@bath.ac.uk

The ESRC Seminar will take place in the Unversity of Bath (UK) on the 21st July 2009. More info at MaFI’s ONLINE DISCUSSION:
http://communities.seepnetwork.org/market-facilitation/node/2078

Thanks you very much.
Lucho Osorio
MaFI Facilitator

These are take away ideas from a conversation with Mike Albu (note 1) on 17 June 2009. Free adaptation by Lucho Osorio (note 2).

1. Everyone agrees that markets matter to the poor. Though not central to SLA, markets are considered by experienced SLA practitioners.

2. Both approaches (SLA and pro-poor market development) recognise that people’s livelihoods are multi-dimensional and complex. Therefore, in order to have a good understanding of problems and possible solutions, we need to use systemic thinking.

3. We need to find ways of working together with these two approaches. It is not possible to subsume one approach into the other. Instead, what we need to do is to find some deeper-level principles that might become the foundation stones for more effective synergies between the two approaches.

The four principles:

Principle 1: Poverty reduction at large scale: Many SL projects do not address this issue very effectively. Conversely, by nature, market-based approaches have impact at scale their core.

Development work is characterised by very small budgets compared to the size and complexity of the social problems that it tries to address. In average, USD25-50/year are invested by development organisations per person living under one dollar a day. Even the poorest person has more resources than that!

Impact at scale may require more or less participation (see principle 4). For example: Rice Intensification System (RIS) vs. treadle pumps. In the former, intensive participation is required in the transfer of the techniques (they spread from farmer to farmer through observation, discussions, etc). In the latter, the farmers are reached by one or a few manufacturers through marketing strategies.

Principle 2: Institutional change: Both SLA and M4P recognise this explicitly. SLA tends to see institutions as sources of social power whereas M4P focus more on “the rules of the game”. However, for both approaches, changing institutions is at the heart of poverty reduction.

Principle 3: Sustainability: pursuing deeper change in complex systems. The concept of “sustainability” is used in different arenas: environmental, economic, social. This is normally taken for granted and many of battles occur between people who say that one type is more important than the other. At the end of the day, all of those dimensions are equally relevant. More important is the depth of sustainability; in other words, underlying changes in the structures rather than superficial outcomes. For example, in education you can talk about a donor who pays a teacher to give a class. This is not sustainable. If the community finds ways to pay for the teacher, we start to see sustainability. But one can go even deeper and start looking at the training systems that need to exist to train current and future teachers, and the institutions that are needed to produce pertinent policies for education.

Principle 4: Empowerment and Participation: empowerment is an important form of poverty reduction because it brings about inclusion, collaboration and coordination to influence others or to solve problems.

Participation is also important but we need to avoid confusing participation as a fundamental outcome (e.g. participation that empowers people to influence policy-makers or the quality of an service in the market) and participation as methodological issue (e.g. participatory assessment as a method used in projects to obtain rich information relatively quickly). The former is fundamental to sustainability because it is related to governance, the sources of power and the rules of the game; the former is not; it is a means for the project team to implement the project.

The four principles interact. For example, the interaction between participation and impact at scale is important because it gives us clues to know when participation is a fundamental outcome or a methodological issue: if participation is a key prerequisite to achieve impact at scale, like in the case of the RIS, then it is a fundamental outcome. On the other hand, if impact at scale can be achieved without participation (e.g. the design of a vaccine by researchers), then it is a methodological issue (a process we may use to achieve a project objective easier, cheaper or faster).

Notes:

1. Mike Albu is the author of the paper recommended for this Online Discussion: Comparing M4P and SLA Frameworks: Complementarities, Divergences and Synergies. He is currently an enterprise development expert in Practical Action’s Markets and Livelihoods Programme.

2. The ideas expressed here are interpretations made by Lucho Osorio from a phone conversation with Mike Albu. Any mistakes are the sole responsibility of Lucho Osorio.

Thanks to Mike and Lucho for sharing thoughts on finding common ground between SLA and M4P approaches.

Mike will be one of the speakers at the SLA/M4P seminar on the 21st July so if you want to make comments/ask questions about what he has said in the conversation on common principles, then post your thoughts to this discussion and we’ll ensure that they are brought up at the seminar itself. We’ll also ensure that the papers and synthesis from the seminar discussions are shared with you all here.

Look forward to lots of contributions! More information on other seminar speakers/presentations to follow soon.

H.

Hi, Lucho!

Is it possible for the keynote speech and open forum to be digitally recorded in audio form and be downloaded from this site? I sure would like to hear the discussions.

Thanks.

Cheers,

Jessan
Philippines

The seminar programme, abstracts & logistics info are now available.

This is a comment posted to the ESRC SLA seminar group on eldis community by Ahsan Rubayat from Bangladesh - I thought MaFI members might like to comment:

Markets do not care for disadvantaged. Those, who have skill, capital, resource, and capacity, will survive in the market. And those, who have disability, incapability, lack of capital and resources, they will suffer and live below poverty line. Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) stresses on duty bearers’ responsibility to create social and political atmosphere where unequal distribution of opportunities will not exist. Therefore, HRBA does not emphasize to push poor and vulnerable to fight in the market for their survival. RBA may not give any immediate solution to fight against poverty rather it focuses on voice, participation, and empowerment for alleviating poverty in the long run.

HRBA is a new theory and it may require years after years to mobilize different actors to raise their consciousness and responsibility for entire society and poverty alleviation. Grameen Bank's Village Phone Program has given some instant solution to fight against poverty by accepting the presence and dominating character of market and its influence on social, political and economic order in the local, national and international perspective.

The dominance and existence of market mechanism is unavoidable. Sen (1999: 112) said, “we have good reasons to buy and sell, to exchange, and to seek lives that can flourish on the basis of transactions.” Transaction is the blood flowing through the veins of market mechanism. Transaction has to be there to keep market alive. Now, RBA stresses on equity and avoid inequality. It is not easy to eradicate inequality, which results due to market. According to Sen (1999: 119), a market situation can be efficient when no one’s utility and substantive freedom can be enhanced without cutting into the utility and freedom of someone else, still there could be inequalities in the distribution of utilities and freedoms. Therefore, HRBA’s ideal situation of inequality requires rethinking about market mechanism rather than accusing it. Sen has found two aspects of the problem associated with inequality, one is income inequality and another is inequality in substantive freedoms and capabilities.[i]

HRBA wants governments to take necessary policies and steps to avoid inequality in the market, so that, disadvantaged people can benefit from it. Sen (1999: 120) connected equity problem with serious deprivation and poverty. Now, government has to provide the social security e.g. employment, health, education, house, etc. Thus, Sen has found the notion of social security system that welfare states try. He has even found conflict between social commitment of Europe that emphasizes on social security rather than employment and that of United States, which stresses on high level of employment. Therefore, he recommends on “simultaneity” of both issues.

I agree with Sen, that importance of efficiency and equity is equally important. Though both have conflict and because of that inequality in terms of market opportunities exist in different societies in the world, the success of HRBA lies with the effective combination of equity with efficiency. Economically, politically, and socially advantaged group of people make material benefit from the market, on the other hand disadvantaged and incapable people live under poverty line with sufferings and miseries, which is unjust and violation of human rights. If HRBA goes in line with welfare state’s concept of minimum reasonable income, and other social benefits, it may reduce the efficiency and economic growth of a society and give rise to a parasite group of people who enjoy benefit and lose capabilities by doing nothing. Hence, HRBA at market situation seeks further critical scrutiny and reformation. Sen (1999: 126)
has given an insight on many sided approach to balance role of government, and other social and political institutions about the functioning of markets.

End note

i. Sen has made it clear with an example. A person with disability, illness, age, or handicapped may
have a problem to earn a decent income, on the other hand, a person having these difficulties may also
face problems to convert income into capabilities and into living well.

Dear Lucho and friends,

The initial discussions look very interesting and insighful and apologies for not having participated earlier.

One of Practical Action’s Markets and Livelihoods Programme currently implemented in Nepal focuses on improving the social-economic conditions of conflict affected and conflict prone communities. This is an interesting project since it seeks to balance and find common grounds between SLA and M4P. The post conflict scenario in Nepal means working with highly vulnerable communities that have been displaced; have lost their assests; have gone through extreme trauma and stress and are residing in communities that have very little social cohesion. Building back their confidence requires focused intervention on creating social harmony, changing their attitudes and practices through behaviour change communication tools and activities, enhancing their knowledge and skills in conflict mitigation practices etc. All of these are quite intesive, expensive and mostly not sustainable. However the other aspect is also to catalyze transformation within the communities to move from passive recepient of support to active change agents. In our project, this is mainly achieved by increasing the communities knowledge and skills and empowering them to engage with a wide variety of system actors – for better linkages to markets, for increased access to public services or for lobbying and advocacy for policy reforms. We have been able to do this though our approach of Participatory Market Systems Development (PMSD) approach adapted at times for highly vulnerable communities. What we have seen in using SLA approach to build confidence in the earlier stage synergizes well with using M4P approaches for scaling up and linking communities to other system actors for larger scale transformations.

I would love to hear how other post-conflict market development projects have been implemented and how their approaches differs from this one.

Thanks

DDK

I assume you will realise I am just being provocative, but actually what are the main differences? Whether working in a “livelihoods” program or a “market development” program in the majority of cases the desired end point will be the same (improved/changed/sustainable livelihoods) – of course we are likely to take a different approach to try and get to that end point. Is it all down to subsidies – the extent to which we use them and how? That links to two of the big questions/principles the seminar – sustainability and scale. Does how we use subsidy and where we put it mean we are more or less likely to achieve those two things?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Alison

Alison Griffith
Head of International Markets and Livelihoods Programme
Practical Action
Direct +44 (0)1926 634467
Skype ali.griff

Greetings all! I’m so impressed by the good work MaFi has been doing and by this partnership – thanks, Lucho!

Almost every practitioner and strategies I meet is interested in this topic. In 2007, SEEP published a hypothetical model for how micorenterprise development can best contribute to poverty eradication. It is in the HIV and MED guidelines and is only 1 page to read: http://communities.seepnetwork.org/hamed/node/766

It is compliant with most of the content in Mike’s paper, I believe. The idea is that communities impact by poverty need holistic development, and MED is one element of a package, which implies that MED programs including MFIs, need to collaborate with or be part of broader inter-disciplinary efforts. In addition, communities need a range of MED services to serve the r ange of different livelihood and business strategies pursued by the community’s diver population. There needs to be a contimuun of services available so that peoepl can graduate out of poverty and to ever higher level of economic security, and also to “catch” people when crisis affects their livelihoods. In addition, we need to strengthen sustainable community safety nets – which have borken down in many situations – so that better off poeple (getting stronger through MED) can provide social support to people who become very vulnerable and need “relief.” Check it out – let us know whatyou think. Can you imagine being part of a system like this? Woudl it ork? Is it at all practical?

We are testing out element of it in our Urban Value Chain Development practitioner learning program.

Thanks,

Mary McVay
Director, The Value Initiative
Facilitator, The Enterprise Development Exchange
The SEEP Network
mcvay@seepnetwork.org
708-660-8140 (Central time, USA)

Thanks Mary for the link to the paper that elaborates stratification of the poor and SEEPs model.

My name is Sarah, and up till February this year worked with an NGO – Africa 2000 Network – Uganda and was in charge of our programs in Eastern Uganda.

One of the projects under my jurisdiction was funded by McKnight Foundation in the USA, and focused on improving women’s livelihood. At commencement of the project, we had a community visioning and planning exercise where the beneficiaries were asked to categorize the social classes – and they came up with a very similar classification to what is contained in the paper:
1. The destitute
2. The poor
3. The ‘active poor’
4. The middle class – not poor but not rich
5. The rich

In their view, the community recommended that classes 2, 3 and 4 should be the beneficiaries of the project since it involved ‘passing on’ inputs to other beneficiaries at the end of each season. When asked why the destitute should not benefit from such a project, their response was they would eat or sell the inputs, and would benefit best from relief programs.

At the end of the project, we observed that over the seasons, many families moved from one class to another, depending on the season – especially before the internal savings and credit scheme was introduced.

On social investment: I have learnt a lot of new ideas re: this topic and appreciate all the contributions made, as this is a fairly new arena in Uganda.

Thanks to all the contributors,

Sarah Mayanja

Hello All,

My Name is Ayodele Taofiq-Fanida, A Youth Practitioner specialised in Youth development, empwerment and building their capacity to international standard. As a matter of fact as Big as my country is we dont have a funding scheme run my Nigeria or own my Nigerians and for this reasons i embarked on a research after my first book on Fundrasing was published under the how to series, a set of developmental books which comprises of 7 books in all for young people who want to change their community and make impact in their country. with the help of British Council Nigeria and DFID.

After the launch, i decide to step it up by countinue the reaserch on funding and so i came up with a proposal on Youth Innovative Fund, run by Young People and Manage by Young People own by Nigerian and for Nigerian, but since i completed the proposal 2007, i have been looking for how to execute it i have take it to several organisation to partner with me on the project, but response is poor and i feel its important and long over due. reason for joining this group to share my views and see how members of this group can be of support.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Yours In Development

Ayodele Taofiq-Fanida
Principal Consultant, Learning and Skills Essentials
Initiator and Coordinator Save Our Community Afrika
Initiator Youth Innovative Fund.

Jayantha Gunasekera
Team Leader – Markets and Livelihoods Programme
Practical Action (Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan)

Hi every one,

We Practical Action Sri Lanka is engaged in pro-poor market development in few sectors such as small scale paddy farming, lagoon fisheries, dairy etc. In our experience a combination of SLF and Market Systemm Development can generate results more effectively. Compared to the conventional approach of individual asset development in our approach we facilitate development of community assets such as lagoon as a resource base, irrigation infrastructure etc. A comprehensive market map (a systemic picture of the sub sector) will identify these as the bottle necks of the market development anyway. Thefore lokking at the market system through the SLA can be advantages. Like to hear your views.

Dear MaFI members: This is the last week of the online discussion prior to the face to face Seminar in Bath-UK (21st Jul). Sincere thanks to all of you who have contributed with very interesting insights and experiences. I made a synthesis of what I consider key points so far and I propose questions that came to my head whilst reading your inputs.

Key points:

- SLA and M4P are development approaches that, despite their apparent differences, can dialogue and enrich one another, provided that we consider underlying common principles and interests, such as: markets matter for the poor; life is complex AND dynamic; the need for sustainability and impact at scale; and the recognition that the poor must be empowered to take the driving seat of their own development (including their participation in markets)

- More income is not enough. Increased incomes may be the focus of many M4P approaches but if we are interested in sustainability and impact at scale, other aspects must interact with the economic dimension and improve through time (e.g. institutions, values, skills, social interactions, communication, etc)

- We need to think and act more holistically if we want to promote sustainability and impact at scale. This demands better (and new?) skills, attitudes and rules for effective partnerships between highly diverse development agents (i.e. MFIs, private businesses, relief and social welfare orgs, development NGOs, etc).

Questions:

- Are SLA and M4P “left” and “right” wing approaches to development respectively?

- Are SLA “rights-based” approaches? Is M4P a set of approaches based on capabilities and opportunities?

- Is SLA too focused on the ends (i.e. sustainable livelihoods) and M4P too focused on the means (i.e. the markets)?

- Are the above distinctions just illusions, over-simplifications or propaganda? If these distinctions are real, do we need to find a common ground or are SLA useful in some cases and M4P in others? If the latter is true, how to know when to apply one or the other?

- Is inequality caused by markets or by other causes that we cannot or do not want to see or address? Are markets a scapegoat for poverty?

I will try to take your ideas and questions to the SLA & M4P Seminar in Bath next week (21st Jul) and will report back to you what the speakers and participants responded. The idea is to have a post-Seminar discussion around those reactions and explore their implications for pro-poor market development facilitation.

All the best,
Lucho Osorio (Practical Action) – MaFI Facilitator

These questions are dilemma for market development practitioners. I think there are similarity at assessment stage or planning stage of a program.

Market assessment at enterprise level and SLA (only study part) at community or household level have similarity. But difference visualize at intervention design and implementation level. In this connection I would like to set an exapmle of CLP project and Shomparka project at Gaibandha, Bangladesh. Shomparka practiced M4P and identified small scale milk producer ( selected milk as a prospective subsector thorugh subscetor studies) . CLP also idetified several subsectors including milk. Paravet ( a rural vaterinary service provider) of Shomparka organized vaccination program with payment of taka 2 to 5 (.03 to .07USD). Objective of this campaign is to generate demand of vaterinary services so that both milk producer and service provider will benefit through strengthening better business relationship. CLP also organized same vaccination campaign but free.

Actually SLA is not a right base approach rather it is a community driven approach. SLA is good for problem identification but it has weakness at intervention design and implementation stage.

Main problem faiced by M4P is to link rural product to high value and higher volume market. Because corporate big buyer required bulk amount, better quality standard, and delayed payment. Theses are challengies to for small-scale producer or producer group. Rural infrastructure and available safe transportation in developing countries are another problem for transpotation of perishable products ( i.e. milk).

I think ultimate goal of both SLA and M4P is poverty alliviation through sustinable livelihood. But strategy differs. There is no last comment to pass for both the approaches. Because approaches were usually applied partially during implementation. To me SLA may be considered as a good assessment approach and M4P as a good intervetion designing approach.

Mozharul Islam
Sr. Monitoring Officer
Making Markets Work for Small-holder Farmers and Rural Producer project
Markets and Livelihood Program
Practical Action Bangladesh
House 12/B, Road 4, Dhamondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Tel office +088-02-8650439

Dear Lucho,

Thank you for your interest to know more about my comments. I am writing my following replies against your quarries [ ]:

[SLA is centred in people and on what they have (instead of what they lack), promotes participation, highlights the relationship between people and institutions, and puts emphasis on sustainability. Having said this, I do not see how SLA is inherently a “community driven approach”. SLA has been used by development agents, not by communities, to make sense of the complexities of the lives of “poor”. Did you mean that SLA puts the spotlight on “communities”?]

Answer: I think SLA is a holistic, people-centered and participatory approach. From assessment stage to Monitoring and Evaluation of SLA approach, local community played an important role to drive this approach.Develop orgabnization facilitate the process but I think if local community not own it this will never be successful. Here local community means a mix group of people including ultra poor, resource poor, other stakeholders ( natural leader in the local area, middle class, rich people) and local institutions( Government, NGOs, BMOs , local government bodies).

[Is perhaps this idea of “community” as a group of individuals (generally seen as “poor”) who share a common identity another source of discord between SLA and M4P? I think the concept of “community” needs to be revisited from a markets perspective (e.g. what communities do we talk about? Farmers, buyers, entrepreneurs? What aspects define their identity as a community? Is a focus on “community” hampering systemic thinking? etc.)What do you (and other MaFI members) think?]

Answer: From market perspectives communities can be further divided in to following three groups (1) Policy makers (both government and private sectors), (2) Value Chain actors (from small scale producer to consumer) and (3) service providers (source: PMSD approach by Mike Albu and Aloson Grifith).

Yes, sometime focus on “community” hampering systemic thinking especially during planning and assessment stage. But sometimes we need focused community to understand market share of specific community group. Mixed group approach is appropriate for understanding , strengthening and developing relationship among value chain actors including service providers and also identifying “leverage point” in the market . To understand market trend, change of market power relationship or market transformation we ususlly conduct frequent (quarterly, annually) market assessment by involving value chain actor/service provider/policy maker separately and/or in a mixed group( relation ship matrix study through mixed group).

As objective is to increase income and employment of poor small-scale producer, we have to understand market share share among differnt market actors. If we understand market power relationship and problem and oppourtunity in value chain and service market then it become helpful for us to device intervetion for small-scale producer. This is not a one-off gave, we have to assess market frequently and observe whether our intervention work or not.

If our intervention work, we shoul konw- what is its strength? If not what is/are cause(s)? Mozharul Islam Sr. Monitoring Officer Making Markets Work for Small-holder Farmers and Rural Producer project Markets and Livelihood Program Practical Action Bangladesh House 12/B, Road 4, Dhamondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh Tel office +088-02-8650439,96752