On July 30, 2025, the AVSI Foundation hosted an informative webinar on “Delivering Economic Inclusion Interventions with Market Systems Development Integration” in collaboration with our partners, the IKEA Foundation, DAI, REPARLE, and Makerere University.
This was the first episode of the ongoing webinar series that will continue sharing learnings and successes of the SMILES project’s recently concluded first cohort.
Introduction to the Graduation and Market Systems Development
The Graduation Focal Person at AVSI Foundation and moderator of the webinar, Dr. Rita Larok, gave an introduction to the Graduation Approach and its evolution and scale while providing an overview of the SMILES project, its approach, components, and their integration with the Market Systems Development Approach to enhance economic inclusion.
“The graduation programs AVSI Foundation has implemented have an inherently strong capacity to connect to the market through linkages to the private sector and financial services, which are embedded in the graduation program, ultimately supporting the upliftment of communities that live in extreme poverty,” indicated Dr. Rita Larok.
Economic Inclusion
The role of Village Saving and Loans Associations, financial literacy, Enterprise Selection Planning and Management, and the disbursement of the business cash grant (asset transfer) in empowering program participants to manage their finances and invest in businesses was emphasised by the program’s Economic Inclusion Advisor, Ruth Ninsiima.
“Through Village Saving and Loans Association, participants begin saving and are linked to formal financial service providers, which expands their access to a range of services such as bank accounts for savings and financial literacy trainings, to strengthen their livelihoods,” clarified Ruth.
Farmer Field Business Schools
“An experiential learning model that builds onto the farmer's experience and offers more of an applied, classroom setting, in the garden,” John Baptist Kahuma, the Agriculture Advisor at AVSI Foundation stated, while expounding on the farmer field and business school approach implemented by the SMILES project, detailing the principle applications in the model such as climate-smart practices which integrate basic experiments and comparisons on the crop varieties and soil fertility best suited for specific environments. Farmer Field Business Schools are help at group level and take a season-long learning following an entire crop growth cycle. The integration of Market Systems Development and farmer field schools start with value chain assessment where both systemic constraints and viable enterprises are assessed concurrently.
Market Systems Development
The process of market actor onboarding, the systemic constraints co-designed with private sector actors, systemic outcomes, and lessons from SMILES interventions, and the catalytic role of market systems in graduation programs in ensuring that the private sector reaches even the most vulnerable individuals in refugee and host communities was explained. Some of the project’s early systemic outcomes included sales growth by deal note market actors, which was reported to be over UGX 2 billion (Euro 494,290); and how third-party financing and business expansion across refugee and host communities is succeeding.
“Early engagement of market actors in graduation and Market Systems Development integration programs is essential to ensure alignment with key components of graduation, such as asset transfer, selection, planning and management, and Village Savings and Loan Associations,” emphasised Stephen Anecho of DAI.
Q&A sessions and concluding remarks
The webinar participants asked questions about project components ranging from business coaching, graduation criteria, the relationship between the farmer groups and the market actors across a number of value chains, and Village Saving and Loans Association methodology. The upcoming webinar will speak about AVSI Foundation’s experience on how integration of parenting and early childhood development is improving child wellbeing in the SMILES project. REGISTER HERE)
(Click HERE for links to the presentation, video and audio recording of Episode One of the webinar series)