Media Release
AusAID’s Market Development Facility launched in Fiji.
22 June 2012
The Market Development Facility (MDF) is a new multi-country private sector development program which aims to create sustainable employment and income earning opportunities for women and men in rural and urban areas throughout the country.
Launching the new program, the Acting Australian High Commissioner, Mr Glenn Miles highlighted that “the Market Development Facility program represents a new phase of Australian support to local industry and recognises the important role that the private sector plays in job creation and livelihood opportunities for the poor. Australia will inject F$11 million into the program over the next four years to drive pro-poor market development in Fiji”.
MDF will partner with businesses that have innovative ideas which will increase business performance, stimulate economic growth and ultimately provide benefits to the poor.
“MDF initially focuses on two growth engines of the Fijian economy, the tourism sector including the industries supplying tourism, and horticulture and agriculture-related exports. We plan to add urban manufacturing and services to our portfolio at a later stage” said MDF’s Team Leader, Dr. Harald Bekkers.
MDF actively seeks potential partners in the private sector to work with and are available to discuss new ideas. MDF then works closely together with potential partners to turn ideas into activities that are commercially sustainable and have a demonstrated link to poverty reduction. As a partnership, MDF provides technical assistance and a cost sharing arrangement; while the partner implements the activity as a part of their core business model.
For example, giving farmers access to agricultural information via mobile phone might be an interesting business proposition for a telecom provider and could help farmers achieve higher yields. MDF can be a partner for thinking through and sharing the cost of the innovation required to make this idea commercially feasible, without subsidies.
“We are partners of the Fijian business community to develop innovative ideas that makes their businesses grow, make the Fijian economy more competitive and diversified, and in the process help create jobs and incomes. In our work we meet a lot of entrepreneurs with interesting ideas. Our job is to work together with these entrepreneurs to make these become a reality,” said Dr. Bekkers.
“The result of MDF will be a large portfolio of partnerships, each unique and tailor-made in nature, at the core of which is a unique business plan, developed in collaboration with a specific partner, tackling a specific need, for their specific business, but all having in common that it makes sense from a commercial point of view to invest in them, and that the they contribute to growth and jobs and income for the poor” Dr Bekkers said.
Dr. Bekkers added, the MDF is about creating additional jobs and income for poor women and men through sustainable broad-based pro-poor growth. MDF’s goal for Fiji is to create 1,100 new jobs and improve the income of 12,000 poor households over a 6-year period.
Those attending the launch included the Chairman, Rt. Savenaca Seniloli and members of the MDF Country Steering Committee; Government representatives; members of the business community and AusAID officials in Fiji.