BDS market development guide.pdf - PACA

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the capacity to ensure that benefits continue beyond the period of an initial intervention.
Capacity is concerned with the market
capability to continue to offer services, and
this is likely to be a combination of different
actors performing different supply-side
functions.
“Capability” can include a wide range of
factors—skills, motivations, systems, finances
etc.—but in a simplified way can be reduced
to two issues:
⇒ The ability to do; and
⇒ The ability to pay for/finance services.
Beyond the period of an intervention:
usefully, this reminds donors and facilitators
they are there to be transient facilitators of
change and not permanent fixtures on the
BDS landscape.
Benefits for SMEs are implied by their demand
for services from providers—that is,
demand/transactions is a proxy measure for
benefits.
Since SMEs need change and to become more
differentiated, for benefits to continue services
must also change; they cannot simply be a
standardized, unchanging product offer.
From this broad view, a general definition of sustainability in the context of BDS market
development is:
The market capacity to ensure that relevant, differentiated BDS continue to
be offered to and consumed by SMEs beyond the period of an intervention.
Building on this, more specifically, we can say that:
A transparent view of long-term sustainability in BDS therefore is one that
defines market capacity in more depth, linking market players with market
functions by addressing the core questions of who does and who pays.
Central to this definition is an institutional rather than organizational view of development.
Although the terms “institution” and “organization” are often used inter-changeably, strictly
speaking they are different.
• Organizations are collections of individuals in a specific, recognizable entity and formal
structure with internal rules.
• Institutions are wider structures of individuals and organizations—formal and
informal—in society or economy defined by mechanisms, relationships, values, and
skills.
Organizations are important and contribute to development objectives, but, ultimately, only
institutional change can bring about lasting improvement. Although organizational
development is concerned with developing individuals, managerial effectiveness, and
systems and investing in physical assets, institutional development is aimed at overcoming
the constraints that prevent people and organizations from working effectively together—
such as information and linkages.
Microenterprise Best Practices
Development Alternatives, Inc.