Rahaf Saad

DevLearn Digest 6: Avoiding the Sustainability Delusion Hi everyone, A few exciting announcements, before we get into our main newsletter. Firstly, we are excited to say that we have developed a Course Handbook for our online training, offering guidance, advice, and examples on market systems development. Download it here, and please give feedback on whether it’s useful – this will really help us decide how much effort to put into maintaining it. A job opportunity; we are hiring our second Young Professional, offering opportunities…

DevLearn Digest 5 – Institutionalising Market Systems Development Hi everyone, We have a bit of a special newsletter this month, summarising recent discussions we’ve been having on how to institutionalise market systems development (MSD). We hope you find the tips and ideas below helpful – please email us to let us know any feedback! Why institutionalise market systems development? When done right, market systems development (MSD) challenges traditional ways of working in development. It asks donors to acknowledge uncertainty and abandon…

DevLearn Newsletter 4 – Training and Ideas Dear all, I hope you had a good holiday season, for those of you celebrating! This newsletter has a slightly different format to the usual, as we want to let you know about our upcoming April training course and three project ideas that we are excited about and looking for partners on. The next newsletter will return to normal, providing tips and resources for market systems development. April Training Courses: Market Systems Development…

Newsletter #3 – Jobs, Marriage, and M&E Developing an MEL system is like planning a wedding Developing an M&E framework is a bit like planning a wedding. Admittedly it’s unlikely to be the best day of your life, and you won’t be showing pictures of the M&E Framework to your children in years to come. There is one critical point of similarity. Like weddings, M&E Frameworks are difficult to develop. They require a lot of time and some level of…

DevLearn Newsletter #2 – Follow The Money! Insight: Help your team get better at financial analysis My own experience in financial analysis began seven years ago, at a comedy club in North London. I love stand-up comedy and was excited to find out that this venue (the Invisible Dot) was looking to crowd-source investment. A series of comedians cracked jokes about the uncomfortable seating – “they spend more on their type-face than their chairs” – and asked us all to…

DevLearn Newsletter 1 – Enough Market Analysis Already! Welcome to the first DevLearn newsletter! The aim is to stay connected with all the wonderful people we work with, and share useful tips and ideas on systems approaches to inclusive economic growth. Each newsletter will include one practical tip, one insight, and one useful resource. Please send us feedback on what you find useful and what you would like to see more or less of. If you find it helpful, please forward to…