Article

How to Improve the Impact of Private Sector Development

2012-01-09 · By Jim Tanburn, Director, Donor Committee on Enterprise Development

The Private Sector Development (PSD) field is evolving and growing fast – mainstream development is discovering the private sector. Who is doing what? What are the trends and what will be the next ‘big ideas’? And in this age of austerity, what do we know about results, and how to measure them? How can we communicate them, and to whom?

These questions will be addressed by the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Seminar in Bangkok, 17-20 January, on Current Trends and Results in PSD. Over 100 participants from more than 30 countries and 50 different organisations, field programmes and governments will be attending. Speakerswill present the practical experience of major PSD programmes in Asia, the Pacific, Africa and Latin America – including value chain development, trade promotion, business environment reform programmes and challenge funds.

This Seminar provides the opportunity for experienced practitioners to update themselves on current trends in the fast-moving field of PSD. In particular, it will focus on what we are learning about results – since those are now so much in demand: how to work out the logic of the programme, how to monitor progress and how to estimate achievements. Several of the programmes featured are using the DCED Standard for Results Measurementas a monitoring framework.

We plan to film some of the sessions, and to interview some of the speakers and participants during the seminar, and post the videos onto the Business Fights Poverty website, as well as comment on the seminar through our website, YouTube, Twitter and Facebookaccounts. We look forward to engaging with you on the discussion.