Ariana Szepesi-Colmenares, a citizen security and governance specialist with 13 years of international development experience, serves as Chemonics’ Director for New Business Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, overseeing business development across a wide array of technical sectors, including rule of law, citizen security, environmental conservation, economic growth, youth and women empowerment. Previously, Ariana…
Stop, Look, and Listen! Preventing Recruitment of Youth into Illicit Activities in Southern Colombia
This post originally appeared on Harvard’s Center for International Development’s Building State Capability program’s blog. The authors successfully completed the 15-week Practice of Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation online course. This is their story. As development practitioners, we tend to rush in with solutions to deal with complex problems. We impose so-called best practices without digging…
Salomat Chorieva Breaks the Mold At age 16, Salomat Chorieva started her first job on a farm in Tajikistan. She endured harsh working conditions, growing cotton and wheat on 700 square meters of farmland. She handed over all her harvests to the head of the farm, who undercompensated her for her labor. Working within a…
The Pankisi Valley in Georgia’s Kakheti region is disconnected religiously, geographically, politically, and socially from the rest of Georgia, which makes the mostly Muslim Kist population feel excluded from the country’s mainstream. The USAID Community Links Activity in Georgia forges linkages among people of different age groups and religious affiliations within Pankisi, building social cohesion…
Rwanda has made a clear commitment to progress in the justice sector, but key challenges with legal aid provision, law implementation, and public understanding of the justice system remain. To overcome these challenges, USAID’s Duteze Imbere Ubutabera activity improves the quality and effectiveness of Abunzi, the community-based reconciliation system, to resolve local disputes. The activity…
The Moldova Competitiveness Project (MCP) invested in a multi-channel digital marketing campaign, #BeOurGuest, which focused on attracting visitors to Moldova’s rural areas. More visitors result in more jobs in hospitality, providing a valuable alternative to migration for the thousands of rural women who leave the country each year. The project created a campaign inviting youth…
The Moldova Competitiveness Project (MCP), funded by USAID and Sweden, invests in targeted design, technology, and business-knowledge training for workers in the fashion industry. The project addresses education gaps and equips workers with creative and technical skills to increase the competitiveness of businesses. Through MCP, OldCom, a Moldovan shoe company, not only employs but improves…
At OldCom, one of Moldova’s most famous shoe manufacturers, production has transitioned from low-value technical and work footwear, to fashionable, modern shoes, but the people and processes in the factory struggled to keep up with demand. Until recently, all of OldCom’s products were conceptualized and sketched by a single designer, and materials were cut by…
The Moldova Competitiveness Project (MCP) SMART program (Streamline Manufacturing, Accountability, Resource efficiency and Transparency) supports large factories to assess risks, enhance productivity, and improve occupational health and safety. This results in more jobs, good working conditions, and salaries up to twice the national average for the thousands of women these factories employ. This is significant…
Iulian Gulea, a Young Moldovan programmer, came across the issue of how employers were struggling to connect youth with jobs, and vice versa. From that problem emerged the idea for an app that he developed with recruitment expert Eugeniu Girla, combining their expertise to create their startup GAUS. This app leverages Moldova’s expertise in Artificial…
Svetlana Arabadji, director and owner of the RiDiager apparel company based in Comrat, Gagauzia, envisioned her business as a good quality workplace providing decent salaries for rural women. This in turn would result in strong returns for her business: quality production with a lower turnover of seamstresses, and higher productivity. This vision is in alignment with the USAID- and Sweden-funded Moldova Competitiveness Project’s (MCP) strategy to enhance the…