Road to Jobs (R2J) Afghanistan

An example of market system development implementation

Project outline | 29 April 2019
               

Road to Jobs is a three-year Sida/ILO/Government of Afghanistan project that aims to create more and better jobs in the provinces of Samangan and Balkh in Northern Afghanistan. The project intends to unleash the economic potential of the expanding rural road network established by the Rural Access Improvement Project (RAIP) implemented by (UNOPS) through improving the underlying pro-poor performance of selected agricultural sub-sectors including grapes, poultry, goat and sheep, dairy, cotton, and almonds.

In collaboration with the Lab, the project is implementing a market systems approach to address important underlying constraints inhibiting better growth and employment outcomes through the facilitation of targeted interventions that are led by market players, not by aid.
To date, the project has achieved outstanding results in less than 4 years of implementation (2015-2019): 52’162 improved jobs created, out of which 3’475 for women and more than USD 3.5 millions of income generated in selected agricultural sub-sectors. To have more information about the project’s results, please read their last evaluation available here.

It all started with a sector selection analysis and several market system analyses to select the agricultural sub-sectors with the highest potential to generate more and better jobs in the region and to understand the root causes of markets underperformance.

Want to know more about R2J?