Participatory Market Systems Development (PMSD) was developed by Practical Action in the early years of the twenty first century following decades of experience of working with smallholder agriculture and energy markets. It is an approach for working with markets that has been used by Practical Action programmes around the world. In 2021 PMSD was revised to take into account learning and changes to the internal and external environments. The new guidance includes a mixture of Practical Action developed tools and to avoid replication, tools developed by other organisations which fit into an overall PMSD approach. The main purpose of the toolkit is to act as a resource for Practical Action programmes but it is available freely for anyone else who wishes to use it.
Watch this video to learn more about PMSD and how this process can influence markets to make a positive change.
PMSD draws on four principles that can be applied to a varying degree according to context:
Systems thinking helps teams to understand the relationships and dynamics that determine how inclusive markets actually are, ultimately enabling the root causes of market system problems to be addressed.
Facilitation ensures projects play a temporary role that encourages behaviour change and ownership amongst the individuals and institutions that determine how markets work.
Participation from a wide range of players – from businesses to marginalised groups – reshapes power dynamics and creates new types of relationships that aid the development of inclusive and resilient markets.
Gender aware strategies ensure that interventions benefit women, while gender transformative strategies tackle power relations to change the rules of the game.
PMSD shares many common features with the wider Market Systems Development (MSD) sector, but the key difference lies in the Participation principle.
Central to PMSD are four principles: Facilitation, Participation, Systems Thinking, and Gender.