State of the Practice in Market Facilitation (Conference Synthesis)

This paper summarizes key points from an on-line conference that aimed to better understand the state of market facilitation practices. The conference was part of the larger Market Facilitation Initiative that assists practitioners working in pro-poor market development to move from market assessments and program design to implementation.In particular, the conference intended to identify concrete needs and knowledge gaps that the Market Facilitation Initiative could address. Conference discussions focused on the following topics:

• Effective facilitation and its challenges;
• Facilitation of horizontal linkages;
• Strategic use of subsidies;
• Exit strategies;
• Using monitoring and evaluation tools for facilitation.