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Making markets work for the poor

ComMark embraces the “making markets work for the poor” (MMW4P) approach to development, which has become increasingly prominent within the international development community.

The MMW4P approach recognises that the poor have far more assets, are far more entrepreneurial and are more deeply involved in markets than is usually acknowledged. The challenge is to find ways to facilitate and deepen people’s participation so that they can benefit as entrepreneurs, workers and consumers.

Building on local experience and existing market activities is therefore essential to the MMW4P approach. For example, ComMark’s involvement with emerging wool farmers is based on the fact that there are about 200 000 black wool farmers in Southern Africa who own about 20 million sheep. By bringing these farmers into the mainstream auction system they can secure better prices for their wool, access business services and thus benefit from South Africa’s growing commercial wool trade. Similarly, ComMark’s investigation into ways to increase Joburg’s cross-border retail trade has grown out of an existing market, in which more than one million people are coming to the city each year, bringing more than R8-billion to the local economy.

The MMW4P approach is not a formula, but rather a strategy consisting of a number of elements. There is no quick-fix, one-size-fits-all solution. A central challenge in the growth of pro-poor market is institutional development and this must focus on both public and private roles. Much of ComMark’s work concentrates on working with government, industry players and business rather than setting up and implementing specific projects. Where ComMark does engage in specific markets it works through established partners by providing grant funding and technical assistance.

Strategic, policy-relevant research underpins all of ComMark’s interventions.

ComMark MMW4P reports

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Accelerating shared growth: Making markets work for the poor in South Africa
Commissioned by ComMark and written by CDE, March 2006
To introduce a wider audience to the development approach known as 'making markets work for the poor', this publication examines the principles of the MMW4P concept and illustrates them through a range of local and international case studies that provide practical examples.
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An objective and an approach for government and development agencies
Gibson, A., July 2004
Governments and development agencies' efforts at promoting economic growth and poverty reduction have achieved mixed results. Why is it that poor people in some countries have experienced huge improvements in their lives while in many others, the numbers of the poor have grown and their prospects, apparently, are bleak? What explains this difference and how can we learn the right lessons to allow more people to move away from poverty? Answers to many of these questions lie in markets.

External MMW4P reports

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Mainstreaming development in the WTO - developing countries in the DOHA round
Ismail, F., September 2007
During the years of international trade negotiations covered in this volume, development concerns have increasingly become 'mainstreamed' into the trade agenda. Paradoxically, this has emerged during a time not of economic crisis, but when the world economy has been delivering growth to a large number of developing countries. However, ensuring that trade becomes a true force for development means going far beyond simply improving developing countries' access to the markets of developed countries.
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Insights from international cases
Tanburn, J., August 2005
This paper is an edited version of "Making Markets Work for the Poor - Insights from International Cases" prepared for the Centre for Development and Enterprise as part of the Commark project in South Africa. The paper provides a number of examples where markets and private sector providers play a role in service provision. In this context, 'markets' is to some extent a code-word for all of the systems within which poor people live.
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Some notes on systemic change - The cornerstone of MMW4P
Freer, G., Insight Strategies, July 2005
The concept of "Making Markets Work" is one that has been gathering momentum in development circles, being promoted as a sustainable answer to increasingly complex and expensive developmental issues. An often raised criticism of the concept is that if markets are supposed to be guided by Smith's invisible hand, why does anyone have to make them work?
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