The BEAM Exchange is a one-stop shop for sharing knowledge and learning about market systems approaches for reducing poverty (MSD/M4P). The goal is to improve the impact and effectiveness of programmes that use these approaches: creating jobs, raising incomes and improving access to basic services – sustainably and at scale.
The BEAM community
BEAM stands for Building Effective and Accessible Markets. Through its website, social media networks, workshops and events, BEAM aims to support development practitioners – helping them to fight poverty by making markets work better for poor people.
The aim is to tap into the strength of the growing market systems community – a global network of policy decision-makers, programme advisors, consultants and implementers – who share their professional knowledge and experiences with each other.
If you want to know more about using a market systems approach, BEAM can help you learn from, and connect with your peers, and share your own knowledge. You can discover how they did it, what works, and the pitfalls to avoid.
Is BEAM relevant to my programme?
BEAM aims to help you use market systems approaches more effectively across a wide range of development fields. BEAM's scope aims to include sectors where a MSD approach is still new and emerging, as well as the more established sectors of agriculture and financial services.
Practitioners have most frequently used this approach in the exchange of goods and services (PSD) – especially for the poor as producers or employees, such as agricultural value-chain upgrading. But experience with the MSD approach (often referred to also as 'systemic approach') is increasingly also gathered in other thematic fields such as skills development (VSD), financial sector development (FSD), governance, health etc.
The core message of the MSD approach is valid beyond PSD – it offers frameworks and principles that help projects to think through effectiveness of interventions in regard to scale and sustainability. For example the SDC funded PERFORM project in the Western Balkans uses a 'systemic' approach which aims to establish a better functioning and sustainable 'market' for exchange between policy makers and social scientists – leading to more evidence-based reforms and decision-making.
Practitioners from different fields of development work are thus invited to exchange their experience on BEAM and join into the discussion on how projects can achieve more sustainable and scalable impact.
How will BEAM help me?
Around the globe, many different development agencies, working in diverse contexts, are using market systems approaches. For a new practitioner, it can be hard to understand what is useful and reliable information.
That's why BEAM also aims to simplify your research by providing access to an expertly curated directory of practical operational guidance and accessible evidence-base about reported results.
BEAM's goal is to cut through the industry jargon and bring you straightforward advice on how to implement a market systems (or 'systemic') approach successfully. Whether you're looking to design, implement or evaluate a project, you will find helpful tools and the latest thinking on good practice.
BEAM will not promote a single methodology or toolkit, but aims to highlight broadly supported principles and characteristics which are common to the main variations. What matters is that the platform can help you make an informed choice when you need to – and give you the evidence to support your decisions.
Read more on what BEAM can do for you.
How do SDC and its partners contribute?
The BEAM Exchange was launched in 2014 with initial three-year funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The platform is managed by a PwC-led alliance, bringing experience and expertise across the fields of market systems development, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), impact evaluation, knowledge management and community building.
The SDC contributes to BEAM Exchange not only in terms of funding but also with the experience and expertise gained in implementing MSD projects worldwide together with its implementing partners and consultants. In doing so SDC becomes an integral part of the international community of donors and implementers who seek to enhance learning and sharing on more effective project delivery.
In order to achieve the goal of BEAM Exchange, it is therefore crucial that SDC staff, E+I network members and implementing partners feel part of this community and actively contribute. This can be in the form of webinar and conference participation, blog contributions, case studies or intervention stories, thematic papers etc. – or just occasionally looking by the BEAM Exchange website to get an update on what is going on in the field of MSD.
BEAM lives through the contributions and participation of development practitioners. It needs you!
