Shamineh Byramji

Shamineh Byramji is an experienced development programme manager with 19 years of relevant experience across the Middle East and South Asia, including leading implementation and programme strategy as Team Lead on a USAID-funded education program in Morocco and Deputy Chief-of-party for a USAID investment climate improvement project in Palestine. She is currently Chemonics UK’s Programme…

The Case for Practical Techniques for Inclusive Classrooms

While efforts to improve inclusion of learners with disabilities are gaining traction with donors and ministries of education, those efforts largely focus on identification and disability mapping to get policy into place. Approaching inclusive education solely from the lens of policy development leaves the classroom teacher and the children she serves waiting. Practical implementation of…

Preventing Conflict at its Roots in Lebanon

Despite advances in rebuilding Lebanon’s physical, social, and economic infrastructure, many Lebanese citizens experience inadequate access to public services and economic opportunities. The Syrian conflict has placed additional strain on communities, reducing cross-border trade and bringing an estimated 1.5 million refugees to Lebanon. Host-community fatigue and tensions over resources and livelihoods are mounting. In response,…

Measuring Community Norms Around Women’s Empowerment in the West Bank: Opportunities and Challenges of a Novel Approach Using Cultural Consensus

Understanding cultural norms is essential to achieving results in development interventions and preventing interventions from causing unintended negative consequences. However, capturing norms within everyday contexts in ways that can be monitored and evaluated can be expensive and time consuming and is not always feasible. We tested a novel method, the cultural consensus analysis (CCA), in…

Rachel Chaikof

Rachel Chaikof is a senior practice specialist for the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Practice. She began her career in international development by serving in the Peace Corps from 2014 to 2016 in Cameroon where she focused on improving access to health education for Cameroonians with disabilities and received a recognition award from U.S. Ambassador…

3 Questions with Roula Moussa on Private Sector Engagement in Lebanon

Roula Moussa is the CEO and founder of Netways. In 2017, she created DiasporaID, a digital platform that connects and promotes collaboration among Lebanese diaspora communities worldwide. As a partner under the USAID Asia and Middle East Economic Growth Best Practices (AMEG) program, Roula shares her experience pitching and scaling DiasporaID to USAID and recommends…

3 Questions with Todd Diamond on Countering Violent Extremism and Preventing Gang Violence

This post was adapted from an interview between Elisabeth Dallas, Chemonics’ Peace, Stability and Transition Practice director, and Todd Diamond, a conflict, stability, and security director in Chemonics’ U.K. Division. For the full interview, watch the video below. How are violent extremism and gang violence — and the development community’s approaches to them — similar?…

Development Works Here with Razan Quossous

We’d like you to meet Razan Quossous! Razan is an economic growth expert with 20 years of experience, including private sector development and increasing access to finance. Now the business enabling environment component leader for a tourism project in Jordan, Razan shares her insights on how development work can spur economic growth to improve lives.…

Razan Quossous

Razan Quossous is an economic growth expert with more than 20 years of experience in the sector. Razan currently serves as the deputy chief of party and commercial sector lead for the USAID Recycling in Jordan Activity. Her technical expertise includes strengthening business enabling environments, economic reform, increasing access to finance, private sector development, investment promotion,…

Developing Participatory Evaluations for Countering Violent Extremism

The paper defines participatory evaluation of CVE as a process by which an implementer or researcher engages various stakeholders to design some of the indicators that they will use as proxy indicators to measure violent extremism. Given cross-contextual variation of violent extremism (VE) dynamics, a participatory approach could clear practical value. How local people experience…

News: Innovation, Technology, and Advancing the SDGs at ICT4D 2019

Digital technology has had a profound impact on global development across sectors and in many parts of the world. From April 30 to May 3, public, private, and civil society organizations from more than 80 countries will convene for the 2019 Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) Conference in Kampala, Uganda. Now in its…

Manisha Aryal

Manisha Aryal is a development practitioner with more than 25 years of experience in designing and implementing ICT-enabled programs globally. In her current role as the Global Practice Lead for Digital Development, she spearheads the company’s digital development strategy, providing thought leadership and hands-on support to projects and programs that innovate with technology solutions. Manisha also…