Sector focus
Through Private Sector Development, we are involved in the build-up of a practical and insightful knowledge base of how business is done in emerging economies and to what extent these businesses can support inclusive and sustainable, local economic development.
Private Sector Development (PSD) is seen as a critical element in the efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) as it offers the economic and financial basis upon which developing countries can build better provision of public services such as infrastructure, education and health services.
How we can help you
MSM works on developing and strengthening the private sector in emerging markets by sharing its research and expertise on entrepreneurship, small business development and leadership, enabling environment, finance, value chains and markets, and building private-public partnerships (PPP). In all these topics, we take a non-western view in the sense that we use the knowledge in development economics, political science, cultural anthropology and sociology that focusses on developing countries. We use our wide range of industry-academia linkages to draw on the expertise of our partners in developing countries and use the practical experience we have acquired in many international education and capacity building programmes to develop new insights.
We focus our Research on issues often related to private sector development, for example: innovative finance, chain and cluster development, international trade facilitation, Triple Helix collaboration, informal business practices, sustainable investments and taxation policies. All these topics are applied to regions and countries in emerging markets and provide us insight on best practices in private sector development.
Our Private Sector Development education package is targeted at private or publicly funded education institutions but is also relevant for development practitioners and policy makers. The education package is quite rare as:
- it is much more based upon practice (from the field) than theory;
- draws more upon materials, case studies and data from developing countries than the Western World;
- focuses on MSME’s rather than multinational companies;
- makes a clear distinction between the actual state of affairs with regard to the private sector (“what is”) and how we would like the private sector to develop (“what ought”).
How we provide support on different levels
Our Private Sector Development experts are able to help you on the individual, educational, organisational and institutional level.
| Focus area | Impact | For whom | Products | |
| Individual | Training | Short term | Teachers, middle and higher management of education institutions, policy makers, post-graduate students, professionals | Scholarships, MBA and Executive Management students, Open enrolment |
| Educational | Curriculum and course development | Medium term | Universities, vocational education institutions, private training centers | Outreach education degree & non-degree, tailor made training |
| Organisational |
Leadership and strategic management, Advisory service |
Longer term | Education institutions, companies, NGO’s | Tailor-made-training, projects, consultancy |
| Institutional | Policy development, partnerships | Longer term | Ministries, agencies, regulatory bodies | Applied research, projects, consultancy |
Our Short Executive Programmes
At MSM we embrace a lifelong learning approach! MSM’s hands-on executive programmes, led by thought leaders and business experts, provides a practical and action-oriented learning experience and are designed to have an immediate impact on performance.
- Value Chain Analysis
- Building Triple Helix Partnerships
- Private sector (MSME) development in emerging economies
Our impact in practice
Virtual Training Course for Value Chain Analysis and Small Business Development
MSM provided a 6-day virtual training for officials from the Ministries of Agriculture and Economic Affairs of the Royal Government of Bhutan on Value Chain Analysis and Small Business Development. The custom made training enhanced the understanding of value chain dynamics in order for the government to better stimulate agribusiness initiatives.
The training consisted of 12 modules taking up 2 to 3 hours each, divided over 6 days. Each module started with an in-depth and interactive lecture to share knowledge and key aspects of value chain analysis, business development and product marketing. The knowledge session was followed by group work where the participants analysed a value chain of one selected product. The final hour of the module was reserved for plenary presentations and discussion. The approach of dividing each session between a lecture, group work and presentations and discussions provided the opportunity of directly applying the new knowledge into practice.
