Smallholder farmers across low- and middle-income countries are often unable to access and participate in agricultural markets, which are located far from them. The development community’s efforts to integrate them into the markets have been aimed at improving their overall agricultural productivity, income and food security. We recently published our largest systematic review that studies the effects of these interventions on the economic performance and prosperity of rural households.

We found that the market access interventions—we included 289 unique impact evaluation studies representing 262 interventions—had small to moderate positive effects on almost all measures of market participation, agricultural production, and welfare. In terms of food security and nutrition outcomes, the evidence is less conclusive. We also found that multi-component interventions are not necessarily more effective than single-component ones.

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Understanding gender-intentionality in digital public infrastructure

Women face critical barriers in accessing, using and benefitting from digital technology and platforms. The gender gap is still substantial as 265 million fewer women than men in L&MICs use mobile internet (GSMA 2024). In India, we are conducting research—with the support of the Gates Foundation—that focuses on understanding barriers and facilitators related to accessibility, affordability, gender norms and design in the uptake of various digital platforms. Through this study, we aim to provide insights on how the platforms can be made more gender intentional.  

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Upcoming RCC funding to understand evidence use in policymaking

The FCDO Research Commissioning Centre will launch two streams of research funding to understand evidence use. The first will focus on learning from examples of evidence use in practice in economic policymaking. Studies funded through this round would aim to produce policy case studies to shed light on the underlying factors—individual, institutional, and political—that influenced changes in the policy agenda, a government policy decision, or policy change. The second stream will be dedicated to evaluations of initiatives designed to increase uptake and use of evidence by policymakers. We recently held an early market engagement (EME) session to introduce the scope and objectives of the funding round, the application requirements and procurement procedures.

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Featured | Journal of Development Effectiveness

The latest issue of the Journal of Development Effectiveness covers diverse topics, including patent subsidies, self-employment, impact of mini-grid projects, groundnut value chain development and light-touch aspirations interventions. Articles in this issue:

• Self-selection versus population-based sampling for evaluation of an agronomy training program in Uganda
• Impact of cash transfer on food accessibility and calorie-intake in Pakistan
• How do patent subsidies drive SMEs to patent? Evidence from China
• Does the small business programme benefit self-employed workers? Evidence from Nicaragua
• A sky view evaluation of the impact of mini-grid projects on progress towards SDG7
• Challenges to groundnut value chain development: lessons from an (attempted) experiment in Ghana
• Aspiring to more? New evidence on the effect of light-touch aspirations interventions in rural Ethiopia

Read the complete issue here. To submit an article to the journal, please read the guidance here