USAID Microenterprise Development
microLINKS is a dynamic knowledge-sharing Web site designed to improve the impact of USAID-funded microenterprise programs and activities. Created through USAID’s Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project, microLINKS allows the Microenterprise Development office to share cutting-edge research with microenterprise development and financial services practitioners, USAID Mission staff, and other interested individuals and organizations while also serving as a meeting place through which visitors can share their own experiences and knowledge.
To address these development challenges, the Microenterprise Development (MD) office provides technical assistance, training, program strategies and designs, and Mission-tailored tools for helping small producers and firms get established, grow, and integrate into markets and value chains. This assistance includes strategies for improving MSEs’ access to sustainable sources of financial, business and other upgrading services needed to meet the demands of new markets, both domestic and export. MD offers technical assistance and training in the areas of microfinance; rural, value-chain, and housing finance; micro-insurance; remittances; microfinance in post-conflict areas; value chain and cluster development; and trade and agribusiness (including backward linkages to small firms and producers).
MD has been developing an approach to enterprise development that focuses on integrating micro and small firms into value chains, while improving their bargaining power and their access to business and financial services, and addressing their needs for a conducive enabling environment. The aim of this work is to enhance these firms’ access to markets and their capacity for taking advantage of market opportunities.
MD’s vision for microenterprise development involves addressing the needs of poor people within the context of globalization, dynamic domestic and global markets, in order to help them harness the resources they need in order to participate meaningfully in markets (often through market linkages to larger firms). Microenterprise-focused activities are best incorporated into broader initiatives to ensure that the poor majority in developing countries benefit from U.S. development assistance.
