Negotiating a better social contract between communities, business and government.

Development is in need of broader thinking around the social complexities of economic growth. The civic space and how households and small enterprises organise themselves in their local communities to generate their livelihoods and achieve their goals is a crucial pillar of small business success, more so than for any other income group. The necessary breakthrough in the ability of MSMEs (which includes smallholder farmers) to contribute to growth is only likely to be achieved through formal financing’s close engagement with local realities to identify opportunities with communities on the ground.

The impetus behind MAP’s development of the digital financing framework is to strengthen de facto communities of practice among financing partners, boosting current individual efforts – each with its existing objectives, budgets and programmes of action – to achieve success at greater scale. In Lesotho and Eswatini (the twin focus of the study), a number of partners, public and private, are already actively engaged in initiatives with a mandate to unlock financing and growth for MSMEs and smallholder farmers.

The study and resulting draft framework use the examples of and lessons from the practical realities of communities as a galvanising construct for how financing partners can engage for increased momentum on the ground towards inclusive growth. While the challenges are complex, with many layers and overlaps, the answers will not be found in individual initiatives in parallel and isolation but in focusing on areas of common cause – in the process amplifying existing successes from the ground up (communities) and the top down (financing and development funding) but not starting from scratch.