Market Systems Development (MSD) is gaining ground across Africa as a practical way to promote inclusive private sector development, job creation and decent work. Governments, development partners and implementing agencies increasingly want to move beyond short-term support and address the systemic constraints that hold markets back. Doing that well takes more than individual expertise. Market systems cut across ministries, agencies, donors, financial institutions and private sector actors. Interventions reach scale and last when these actors share a common understanding of how systemic change works. Building that shared understanding is what this course sets out to do. Over four days in Makeni, Sierra Leone, you will work through the full MSD project cycle and leave with a plan for applying it in your own institution. The course is run by the International Training Centre of the ILO, drawing on the ILO's global experience with MSD, and hosted in partnership with the Entrepreneurship Training Centre of Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology (EBKUST). Much of the case material comes from the ILO's Opportunity Salone Project in Sierra Leone, where MSD approaches have been applied with national agencies, ministries, development partners and financial institutions.
The course is for senior and mid-career professionals working on private sector development, enterprise support and employment across Anglophone Africa. You will be in the room with: - Officials from government agencies and ministries responsible for SME development, trade and industry, local content, and employment and labour - Managers of incubators, business development service providers and enterprise support institutions - Representatives of financial institutions, microfinance providers and investors - Staff of development partners, UN agencies and donor-funded programmes - Technical cooperation project staff and MSD practitioners The exchange between participants from different institutions and countries forms a core part of the learning.
The course covers MSD from both a policy and an operational angle. By the end of the course, you will be able to:
The course uses ITCILO's competency-based and participatory learning approach, which pairs theory with immediate practical application. You will spend most of your time working: on case studies, group exercises, simulations and facilitated discussion. Throughout, you will be asked to test what you are learning against the institutional realities you will return to. Real examples and case studies from the region keep the concepts anchored in practice.
The content covers the full MSD project cycle: market systems analysis, intervention design, stakeholder engagement, and strategies for achieving scale and sustainability. Particular attention goes to the different roles that government institutions, development partners, financial actors and private sector stakeholders play in facilitating systemic change.
You leave with an action plan, individual or institutional, setting out how you intend to apply MSD principles in your own work.
Participants who complete the course receive a Certificate of Participation jointly issued by the International Training Centre of the ILO and the Entrepreneurship Training Centre of Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology.