Inclusive Value Chain Growth Starts with Better Market Systems, Not Better Projects

Inclusive Value Chain Growth Starts with Better Market Systems, Not Better Projects

One of the questions I continue to grapple with as a regional programme lead is this:

Why do some development interventions deliver strong activity numbers, yet struggle to create lasting economic opportunities once project support ends?

After years of working across a number of sectors, especially food value chains, I have become increasingly convinced that the answer often lies in how we define the problem.

Too often, we focus on helping individual producers, enterprises, or communities in isolation. Those efforts matter. But if the wider market system remains unchanged, the same constraints tend to reappear; limited access to inputs, weak market linkages, inadequate finance, poor information flows, high transaction costs, and fragile buyer relationships.

Sustainable and inclusive growth requires more than supporting individuals. It requires strengthening the relationships, incentives, and market functions that shape how entire systems operate.

That is where a Market Systems Development approach becomes particularly valuable.

What I Have Observed in Practice

Across East and Southern Africa, I have seen repeatedly that economic opportunities become more sustainable when businesses see a commercial reason to continue engaging long after donor funding has ended.

Recently in Zambia and Uganda for example, locally embedded enterprises continued supporting networks of young women soybean producers through existing community structures, maintaining market engagement and extension support even during a period when programme activities were paused. The most important lesson was not the volume produced. It was the fact that market relationships continued functioning because they were aligned to commercial interests.

In Tanzania, a private aquaculture business maintained large-scale fingerling production despite programme disruptions. The enterprise continues to address a genuine market need; access to quality fish seed. While long-term employment outcomes still require verification, the experience reinforced an important point. When businesses solve real market constraints, they create opportunities that extend far beyond project participants.

I have seen a similar pattern in aggregation and trade. Commercial SMEs that purchase products from dispersed producers often do much more than buy and sell. They provide market information, reduce transport barriers, connect farmers to buyers, support quality control and create a pathway into formal markets that many producers would struggle to access individually.

These examples may appear different on the surface, but they are connected by a common thread.

The opportunity is not created by a project activity alone. It is created when market actors find value in continuing the relationship themselves.

What Market Facilitation Really Means

One of the biggest misconceptions about development programmes is that success comes from delivering more activities.

My experience has been the opposite.

As a market facilitator, my role is rarely to be the primary service provider. Instead, it is to understand what prevents market actors from working together effectively and then help create the conditions for those relationships to emerge and grow.

That often means spending more time understanding incentives than implementing activities.

1. Why is a buyer reluctant to source from small producers?
2. Why is a financial institution hesitant to serve a particular segment?
3. Why are quality inputs unavailable in a region with clear demand?
4. Why do opportunities that appear attractive from a development perspective fail to attract commercial investment?

The answers are usually found within the system itself.

When we understand those incentives and constraints, we can help businesses identify commercially viable ways to engage producers, workers, aggregators, processors, traders, financial institutions, and support-service providers.

In practice, this means facilitating partnerships, strengthening market linkages, improving information flows, reducing transaction costs, and helping actors see the business case for inclusion.

The goal is not dependency on programme support.

The goal is creating a situation where businesses continue investing because it makes commercial sense for them to do so.

Why Systems Thinking Matters

One lesson that continues to stand out is that value chain growth is rarely constrained by a single issue.

A producer may need better inputs. But inputs alone are not enough.

They also need skills, market information, access to buyers, working capital, aggregation services, logistics, and confidence that the market will reward quality improvements.

Likewise, a processor may require reliable supply. A buyer may need consistent quality. A financial institution may need evidence of commercial viability. Each actor depends on the actions of others.

This is why systems thinking matters.

When we strengthen only one part of the chain, results are often temporary.

When we improve the connections between different actors, the effects can spread well beyond direct programme participants.

I have observed this through emerging aggregation models that connect producers to structured buyers, through financial-service partnerships designed to improve enterprise readiness, and through commercially driven supply relationships that reduce transaction costs while improving market reliability.

These are not isolated interventions.

They are examples of markets beginning to function more effectively.

And when markets function better, opportunities become easier to access, more resilient, and more likely to last.

What This Means for the Sector

For development practitioners, it means measuring success not only by activities delivered but also by whether market relationships continue without us.

For businesses, it means recognising that inclusive business models are not solely a social responsibility exercise. They can also strengthen supply chains, expand customer bases, reduce risk, and unlock new commercial opportunities.

For donors and programme leaders, it means investing more attention in incentives, behaviour change, partnerships, and market functions rather than focusing exclusively on direct delivery.

The most valuable role we can often play is not doing more ourselves.

It is helping others do more together.

A Final Reflection

The most important question for me is no longer whether a project reached its targets.

It is whether the market actors involved have stronger incentives, deeper relationships, and better mechanisms to continue creating opportunities after the project ends.

Because inclusive value chain growth is not ultimately built through projects.

It is built through market systems that enable businesses, producers, workers, and institutions to create shared value long after external support has moved on.

The more we focus on strengthening those systems, the more likely we are to achieve the lasting and inclusive growth that development programmes are ultimately trying to deliver.

Are we spending enough time improving how markets function, or are we still spending too much time delivering activities that markets themselves could sustainably provide?