Samarth-NMDP is a five year, UK Aid-funded market development programme implemented by Adam
Smith International, The Springfield Centre and Swiss Contact. The programme aims to increase incomes
of 300,000 smallholder farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs through a Making Markets Work for the Poor
(M4P) approach1
. The programme defines poverty, and its target groups, as those farmers and small-scale
entrepreneurs living on less than US$2.50 a day2
.
The M4P approach is different from traditional poverty-reduction approaches as interventions are not
carried out directly with beneficiaries, i.e. poor farmers and entrepreneurs. Instead, Samarth-NMDP
acts as a facilitator outside the market system to influence market players inside the system, to
strengthen the functioning of the market in favour of the poor. In M4P, the challenge is to unlock and
develop the incentives and capacities of public, private and/or civil society actors to target new market
segments, i.e. poor and disadvantaged people.
The M4P framework is designed to impact ‘ the poor’, but poor people are not homogenous. Therefore
understanding and unpacking ‘the poor’ is imperative for all M4P programmes so that they can be
adequately targeted. This means identifying distinctions in the socio-economic and cultural position of
men and women, different castes or ethnicities, or between those of different geographic locations, as
well as when and where they face additional barriers to markets3
.
The roles of the poor, and the specifics of inclusion and exclusion varies by sector. Samarth-NMDP works
in ten rural sectors: Dairy, Pigs, Fish, Livestock Feed, Ginger, Vegetables, Crop Protection,
Mechanization, Media and Tourism. This research examines the role of women in the Pig sector in Nepal
by looking at the sector in Kailali District, Far-West region and Dhankuta District in the Eastern region (see
map, Figure 2).