In low- and middle-income countries, 90 percent of jobs come from the private sector. Most of the businesses that employ people are small—sometimes only a few employees—and they often struggle to make money. With access to reliable buyers, bigger markets, and more networking opportunities, promising businesses can grow and hire more workers, boosting the local economy and helping reduce poverty.  

Directly connecting small businesses to larger, wealthier markets they wouldn’t reach on their own helps them make more money. Small businesses often can’t afford to search for large buyers or consumers in foreign markets who may be willing to purchase at higher quantities and prices. Programs that facilitate these connections often increase sales and profits.

In addition to boosting sales, access to new markets helps entrepreneurs run smarter and more effective operations. Programs that encourage and make exporting easier are especially effective at promoting learning. Foreign buyers may have higher quality expectations, leading local businesses to change their techniques to match these expectations. In Egypt, for example, connecting small rug manufacturers with foreign buyers increased profits and rug quality after just a few months. In Myanmar and Bangladesh, links to multinational buyers led to improved management practices and worker safety at local factories.

Export opportunities bring broad benefits beyond short-term growth. When local businesses in low- and middle-income countries connect to export markets, they often create more jobs, pay higher wages, and offer more stable work. Recent studies also show that exporting can support greater economic inclusion—for example, in Myanmar, by increasing employment and earnings for women, especially when businesses export goods typically produced by women. These gains suggest that access to global markets can help improve livelihoods and promote social inclusion in some cases.

Connections within markets matter too. When small businesses connect with each other, they can share useful information. In China, strengthening connections between local businesses through informal meetups and shared associations led to lasting gains in business performance. Networking can be especially helpful for women, who may not have large professional networks already; in Ghana, after women entrepreneurs were invited to join WhatsApp networking groups, they sold improved products and used marketing techniques that helped them make more money.

Global buyers, digital marketplaces, and public procurement can all drive growth by making it easier for smaller businesses to sell. Still, research finds that small businesses don’t automatically benefit from market expansion. Often, digital markets can be too crowded, and procurement processes can lack transparency. Improving market access and pairing it with capacity building for smaller firms can help ensure success. 

Programs helping small and mid-sized businesses reach new buyers are more effective at job creation than those that simply shift customers around in existing markets. Local marketing can result in moving buyers from one business to another, which helps some but hurts other business owners and workers. Though such programs may still create broader benefits for consumers, more effective programs focused on helping businesses reach new foreign markets or larger domestic buyers can promote greater job growth and profitability by improving productivity.  

Forging direct links between businesses can build trust and unlock growth. In many markets, the challenge isn’t just effort and money to find buyers; it’s also knowing who to trust. In China, for example, a program that introduced suppliers to buyers—rather than just information—led to new transactions and annual profit gains that were 8-17 times greater than the modest cost of organizing the introductions. The direct introductions led suppliers and buyers to team up for higher quality products and improved trust across the supply chain.