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Senior Vice President, Middle East and North Africa Business Unit Melissa Gasmi
Melissa (Scudo) Gasmi joined Chemonics in 2007 and brings more than 20 years of experience managing complex international development programs. Melissa served as team leader for Chemonics’ Tunisia Tax and Customs Reform Activity in Tunisia, chief of party for Chemonics’ Asia and the Middle East Economic Growth Best Practices project, and program manager and deputy program manager of the global USAID Financial Sector Knowledge Sharing project. She began her career at Corporate Executive Board as a senior manager of a financial sector program providing strategic, best practices research for executives of commercial, small business, and market research divisions at more than 150 financial institutions worldwide. Prior to Chemonics, she was a program officer with Grameen Foundation USA and Philippines Country Representative for Innovations for Poverty Action. Her expertise includes mobilizing finance for development, public financial management, and forging public private sector partnerships. Melissa received a M.A. in international development with a specialization in developmental economics from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a B.A. in International Studies, Spanish, and History from Dickinson College.
by Melissa Gasmi
Three Models that Ensure Private Sector Engagement
This post originally appeared on Devex. Donor agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, have made private sector engagement, or PSE, a key element of their development strategies. Being more intentional about including the private sector in development is good news. Over the years,…
The Journey to Better Development: Financial Sector Tools Worth Revisiting
If we’re going to make development dollars go further, we need to build on and learn from our experiences as implementors. Recognizing this, we revisited several frequently requested economic growth resources produced by Chemonics, our partners, and USAID through the USAID Financial Sector Knowledge Sharing Project (FS Share), which closed in 2012. While reviewing the…
3 Questions With Melissa Scudo on Tax Reform for Economic Growth
Melissa Scudo is the team leader for the Tunisia Tax and Customs Reform Activity (TCP)—a two-year initiative to help the government of Tunisia bolster economic growth through tax and customs reform. TCP is part of Chemonics’ Asia and Middle East Economic Growth Best Practices (AMEG) project. Regional turmoil makes this a challenging time to implement…
More than a Wallet: The Role of the Private Sector in Development
The international community predominately sees the private sector as the answer to the gap in financing for the Sustainable Development Goals, but what other roles can the private sector play in development? Hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this panel event explores this topic and features representatives from the U.S. government, multinational corporations, SMEs, and development practitioners.