External MMW4P reports

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.

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.

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?

Which approaches will give the best possible results, with the limited aid funding available? Good answers to this question take time to develop, yet time is the scarcest commodity for many development professionals. This Reader provides a rapid and thorough review of what people have been doing and thinking in the last year, around the world and in many different agencies.

For every business, the one item that never leaves the agenda is the search for the next big growth opportunity. Yet how often do large, multinational corporations look to the developing world for that prospect? And how often do the poor in developing countries look to multinationals for products and services to improve their lives? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is more and more often.

Tools for Development draws together a range of techniques designed to help DFID officers and others undertake development activities and interventions of any size and kind.