AgResults Leads Prize Competition Clinic at the Market Systems Symposium

At the Market Systems Symposium in Cape Town, South Africa that ran from April 8 to 11, AgResults captured the growing interest of the development community in Pay-for-Results approaches to transform market systems. Although PfR prize competitions have spurred innovation for hundreds of years, this approach has not historically been used in international development. However, USAID and other donors have recently pivoted to using the prize competition model to drive market systems and create long-term change.

On April 10, AgResults led a clinic where participants engaged on the elements of pay-for-results prize competition design. As part of the hands-on workshop, the group considered when to choose a prize competition as the mode of intervention. They also learned how to assess the concept for validity, structure the prize, and create a business plan that formally captures this information.

This was just one of the many interactive sessions at the Symposium, which brought together practitioners and donors from around the world, including ACDI/VOCA, the BEAM Exchange, Cardno, DAI, Feed the Future, Fintrac, RTI, and USAID. During the symposium, attendees engaged one another in conversations to explore themes such as adaptive management, market systems resilience, systems thinking, and emerging trends and innovations. The symposium emphasized capacity building sessions where participants learned how to design, test, and hone their own market systems development approaches and tools.

Learn more about the Market Systems Symposium at the conference website.

Funded by USAID (US), DFID (UK), DFAT (Australia), Global Affairs Canada, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AgResults has designed and implemented prize competitions since 2013 focused on spurring fundamental change in market relationships between the private sector and smallholder farmers.