Join us on Episode 34 of Inclusive Plug powered by RECONOMY, as we explore the potential of the Western Balkan region in transforming its economic landscape through business process outsourcing (BPO) and information and communications technology (ICT). Hosted by Sabin, this videocast features an engaging discussion with distinguished guests from the Association of Business Service Leaders (ABSL). Guests: Nadina Gradaščević, Managing Director and Vice President of ABSL Bosnia and Herzegovina Arjodita Mustali, President of ABSL Albania Eni Kocillari, representative of Helvetas in the frame of RECONOMY Through this dialogue, we uncover how these efforts are not only addressing market fragmentation and skill gaps but also positioning the Western Balkan region as a burgeoning hub for global business services. Tune in to gain valuable insights into how collaborative efforts in these sectors are creating a vibrant ecosystem that attracts and retains skilled youth. Watch now to understand the moves shaping the future of the Western Balkans in the global economic arena!
Join us in Episode 33 of Inclusive Plug, brought to you by RECONOMY, where our host, Sabin, engages with a panel of experts to explore the role of digital technologies in sustainable agriculture. This conversation 🎙️ features insights from Mihran Sahakyan, the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of SkyAgro, Bojan Kolundzija, the Team Leader of the OPTIM project in Moldova (a project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, implemented by Helvetas), and Alla Hovhannissyan, a Project Manager at the Strategic Development Agency (responsible for one of RECONOMY's projects focusing on digitizing sectors for competitiveness) - a partner of Helvetas in the frame of RECONOMY.
📝 In this episode:
🌟 Don't miss this engaging discussion that bridges technology and sustainable agriculture, highlighting the transformative potential of digitalization in fostering green economic development. Stay tuned for more episodes where we push the boundaries of innovation for a more inclusive and greener future.
Welcome to another episode of Inclusive Plug, brought to you by RECONOMY. In this episode, we delve into the complex world of employment, dissecting what it means to create ‘decent’ and ‘inclusive’ jobs in a rapidly evolving labor market. 🔊 Featured Experts: Katharina Walker: Senior Advisor on Skills Development, Helvetas Hans Posthumus: Trainer and Consultant on Private Sector Development Paulo Rodrigues: Program Manager, RECONOMY, Helvetas 📝 In This Episode: Defining Decent and Inclusive Employment: Insights from Katharina and Hans on what these terms really mean in today's context. The Importance of Green Jobs: Paulo and Katharina discuss the significance of 'green jobs' and their impact. Employment Projects vs. Realistic Outcomes: Hans sheds light on the gap between ambitious goals and actual results in employment projects. Improving Systems or Disrupting Them?: A discussion with Hans and Paulo on the approach towards meaningful progress. Job Creation vs. Skills Development: Katharina and Paulo examine the differences and impacts of these approaches on the labor market. Focus of Employment Efforts: Paulo and Hans debate on job creation, job enhancement, and inclusivity in employment. Upskilling and Technical Skills: Katharina's take on the need for upskilling in the current job market. Bridging Informal and Formal Sectors: Insights from Hans on this crucial aspect of employment projects. Wage Employment vs. Self-Employment: Katharina's perspective on the sustainability and growth of different employment types. Quality of Jobs - A Continuum or a Goal? 🌟 Stay tuned for more insightful discussions like this. Thank you to our esteemed guests for their invaluable insights. Don't forget to join us in our next episode, where we continue to explore critical topics around inclusive and green economic development.
In Episode 31, we are joined by Dr. Risto Ivanov, a senior expert in managing EU and national projects in North Macedonia with extensive knowledge in energy-efficient construction and renovation. With his plethora of qualifications and hands-on experience, Risto guides us through an in-depth exploration of the energy landscape in the Western Balkans, from historical shifts to major policy shifts and future predictions. Some of the questions explored: - How has the Western Balkans' approach to energy efficiency evolved over the years? - What are the primary sources of power in the Western Balkan countries? - What are the major challenges and governmental initiatives in promoting energy efficiency in the region? - How do energy prices and the broader economic landscape impact energy decisions in the region? - Is there a grassroots push towards sustainability and how do local businesses view energy efficiency? - How is the EU Green Deal shaping the energy approach of the Western Balkans? - Will the Western Balkans achieve carbon neutrality by 2050?
Killer robots and autonomous weapons. Global unemployment. Mass surveillance. Superintelligence. There are a host of fears about artificial intelligence (AI) and related industries such as machine learning (ML). But what exactly are they? How are they being used? What, if anything, do they offer the development sector? Are we at the beginning of a fundamental transformation of a business model that, in many ways, is no longer fit for purpose? Will they trigger an industry-wide digital disruption that will challenge the dominance of the largest development organizations, or serve to exacerbate the divide between the developed and the less developed economies in the world?
In Episode 30, the host, Sabin Selimi, sits down with Alice Schmidt, a Thought and Practice Leader on Sustainability, AI, and Social Impact. Together, they delve into the benefits, opportunities, and risks tied to utilizing AI in the development sector. They also discuss AI’s influence on both the green and digital transition.
In Episode 29, we dive into the challenges of pitching ideas and convincing partners or donors to adopt and act upon them. Even if you have a brilliant idea, selling it can be trickier than selling a product or service. This is where the market systems development (MSD) approach comes in. Despite the progress in applying and generating relevant practices and evidence, there are several misperceptions about the approach, partly due to the way it is communicated. This episode features a special conversation with Masha Scholl, Coordinator for International Communications at Helvetas; Nasir Ahmed, Chief Technical Officer at the AIP-PRISMA program in Indonesia; and Sarah Bove, Program Director for Women IN Business, an MSD program of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) implemented in partnership with TechnoServe.
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency launched RECONOMY in July 2020, a regional program that applies the MSD approach, spanning 11 countries from the Western Balkan and the Eastern Partnership regions. The inception phase finished in December 2022 for the Eastern Partnership region and in March this year for the Western Balkan region. RECONOMY was conceived with a regional remit from the outset – testing the applicability of MSD principles to the challenges posed by using a whole region that comprises 11 countries as a unit of analysis, with their differing operational and contextual realities. For this reason, this episode features a special conversation with Elene Tkhlashidze, the Operations Manager of RECONOMY.
This episode also features Adriano Scarampi, who formerly served as Advisor at the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund, which ended in 2021. It was funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and it focused on market system change and women’s economic empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, and until March 2018, the Palestinian Territories. The Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund generated additional income for more than 30,000 women and the aggregated net additional income generated for poor women across Egypt and Jordan amounted to over £4,6 M. Over the project's lifetime, more than 116,000 women benefited from increased productivity and skills.
This is Episode 28, where together with Elene Tkhlashidze and Adriano Scarampi, we dive deep into the inception phases of the two large programs.
Mobility is no longer a “buzzword” or just the “hottest new shiny thing”. Today, mobility is mainstream, and it’s a business strategy that can’t be overlooked any longer. The way we work has slowly but surely been shifting towards a more dynamic and fluid way of working, and the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the development of these trends significantly. This has had an impact on organizations as whole, but what does this mean for mobility?
This episode features a special conversation with Blerta Peta, an international development professional with a focus on issues of youth employment, social inclusion, and migration; Regis Blanc, Advisor on Migration at Helvetas; and Uranik Begu, Executive Director at Innovation Center Kosovo.
There are more than 2.5 billion people playing games at the moment. They are from all over the world. And the gaming industry is now looking to its 'next billion'. Yes, you read this right.
The industry has become a career choice for young people. It's offering new ways to make a living that didn't exist a decade ago. Let's take you through arguably one of the most important and innovative sectors in tech today, especially in emerging Europe like the Eastern Partnership and the Western Balkan regions.
This episode features a special conversation with Kristina Jovanovic, Executive Manager of the Serbian Games Association; Matviy Suslenko, a game developer from Ukraine; and Jelena Antic, an Intervention Manager at Help - Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe, which is an implementing partner to Helvetas in the frame of RECONOMY.
The way we describe people shapes how we perceive and act toward them. Terms and words that are used in development seem to indicate who holds power and who doesn’t. But then, does this matter? Sometimes it may not matter what we call someone. Rather the way we treat and approach someone is more important than the description or labeling.
A fascinating discussion with Nabanita Sen Bekkers, Director of Opportunities Unlimited, also Nabanita is part of the DCED secretariat focusing on the results measurement work; Duncan Green, a professor in practice in international development at the London School of Economics and senior strategic adviser at Oxfam; and Zenebe Uraguchi, an economist and Program Manager of RECONOMY.
To the viewers, if you’re a “beneficiary”, let us know what you want to be called. Others have thought much more about this issue, and we’d love to listen to your additional reflections on the topic. Language and meaning constantly evolve, while knowledge adapts and expands.
The use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) have increased throughout the world, particularly after the advent of the Internet. Statistics show that most people living in the developed economies have access to ICTs in one form or another, but this is not the case for people living in developing economies. Some of the questions explored in this episode are: how can these countries, especially in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership region, take advantage of the opportunities generated by ICTs? And how can the vulnerable groups in these countries benefit from ICTs?
For this episode, the guests are:
- Nandini Harihareswara, a digital finance and payments expert, focused on ensuring the benefits of the digital economy are inclusive of those underserved in emerging markets;
- Sona Telunts, a Programs Director at the Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development in Armenia; and
- Asib Zekir, a manager of the social enterprise REDI Recycling in North Macedonia.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
The Russian invasion of Ukraine fundamentally challenged the EU approach towards the future of the neighborhood countries, European security and stability, and prospects for the EU integration in the region. 13 years after the Eastern Partnership initiative was declared under the leadership of Poland and Sweden, its geopolitical success remains to be under a question mark. The strategic reason for the Eastern Partnership policy is clear: unless the EU exports stability and democratic values into its Eastern neighborhood, it risks importing instability from the region.
Does the architecture of the Eastern Partnership Initiative remain to be valid, or go in line with the "Westlessness" as a major disease of the Euro-Atlantic foreign policy? What should the strategic reform of the initiative look like to go beyond technical cooperation into a new "philosophy" of European integration?
For this episode, the guests are:
- Tamara Sulukhia, Director of International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University
- Mikayel Hovhannisyan, Vice-Rector for Development and Innovations at Yerevan State University
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
Speaking of employment, let’s admit it: we tend to care more about the number of jobs created. Ask a politician up for election, or a project manager preparing an annual report on employment…
Then comes who’s getting the jobs — women, men, people from rural areas, ethnic minorities, young people. The type of jobs seems to be an afterthought despite many years of discussions. It’s high time to address this misplaced priority.
So, for this episode, the guests were:
- Katharina Walker - a senior advisor on skills development at Helvetas. She has provided strategic and technical support to various projects in the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership region, and in Myanmar. Katharina also has substantial experience in backstopping thematic networks. Having worked at a German Chamber of Commerce in India, Katharina is highly experienced in engaging the private sector. In Switzerland, she carried out extensive policy-related research as well as consultancies on Vocational Education and Training and labor markets.
- Stephen Hartrich - a project coordinator of the systems change initiative, supporting the International Labour Organization and donor-funded projects to adopt a systemic approach to decent work. Steve has over 14 years of experience working in Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific as an engineer and market systems development professional in public, private, and multilateral organizations. He’s specialized in the market systems approach to development, value chain development, private sector development, and monitoring and results measurement.
- Edlira Muedini - a manager of the RisiAlbania project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, implemented by Helvetas, aimed at enhancing youth employment in Albania. The goal is to create better employment and income opportunities for young Albanians. Edlira has a vast experience in managing development projects as well as working in the private sector.
Please send us your feedback about the episode in the comment section below.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned and hit the subscribe button in the video!
The world has entered 2022 in the stage of polycrisis. Climate change poses existential threat to humanity, disproportionately affecting poorer economies predominantly based on natural resources and related economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. Yet even the more diversified economies are vulnerable to climate change, while climate risks are of cascading nature, causing unprecedented risks for global economy and security. Phasing out fossil fuels and building the adaptation capacity are of critical urgency and importance, but are we on track to respond to this threat?
The guests for this episode were:
- Saleemul Huq – Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development and Professor at the Independent University in Bangladesh as well as Associate of the International Institute on Environment and Development in the United Kingdom. Saleem is an expert in adaptation to climate change in the most vulnerable developing economies and has been a lead author of the third, fourth, and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- Louise van Schaik – Head of the Clingendael International Sustainability Center at the Clingendael Institute and Project Manager of the Planetary Security Initiative. Her fields of expertise are climate change and natural resources, global health and EU external action.
- George Abulashvili – Director of the Energy Efficiency Center in Georgia, a co-implementing partner of Helvetas in the frame of the regional program RECONOMY. His experience spans from energy efficiency and renewable energy to climate change mitigation and analysis of environmental policies and regulations.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
By looking at the title of this episode, you may think that ‘oh, once again the old debate about geography and economic development!’ If one is thinking about opening a coffee shop or a restaurant, then location is still an old mantra for businesses. Even in this case, businesses still need to use a well-built website, or social network campaigns to reach out to more customers. For other economic activities, globalization, mainly rapid digitalization, seems to have reduced the importance of locations. Take for example remote work, work from home, and telecommuting.
Yet, dismissing the role of location in influencing access to and use of economic opportunities is hasty. Opportunities aren’t distributed evenly in a region or within countries. Where a person was born or chose to live influences economic benefits. This could be due to the remoteness of a location or arising from the segregation of urban environments leading to urban slums and excluded neighborhoods. People also move – voluntarily in search of opportunities or are displaced due to conflicts or climate change.
RECONOMY considers location-based livelihoods and their consequences for poverty and exclusion.
So for this episode, the podcast host Sabin interviewed three experts on why and how location still matters:
- Jeremy Williams grew up in Madagascar and Kenya, and now lives in Luton in the UK, where he is a writer and campaigner on social and environmental themes. He runs the blog called The Earthbound Report, and his most recent book is "Climate Change is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice".
- Elene Tkhlashidze is a private sector development practitioner, with 10 years of experience in Swiss development cooperation. Her current work in Moldova focuses on inclusive development, with focus on equal access to opportunities for Moldovan women and men. Apart from the professional experience she has personal connection to the subject of this episode by being internally displaced due to the conflict in Georgia in the early 90s, where she is originally from.
- Asib Zekir is a Roma activist and one of the founders of Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative in North Macedonia. There he’s currently serving as a Program Manager, managing the social enterprise called REDI Recycling.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
The digitalization of many professions around the world has contributed to creating a new, competitive and innovative labor market. Self-employed people who mostly work remotely have been sharply rising in numbers in the past years. These people are called freelancers.
Wherever they are based, freelancers are increasingly using digital innovation to work on their own terms, with the flexibility that their lives demand. That’s not just good for them, it’s good for businesses, too. It makes it possible for businesses to tap into workers with very specialized skills when they need them. It also allows those freelancers to control the parameters of how they work.
Freelancing offers work opportunities that anyone with an internet connection can do, with the option of choosing from a variety of job descriptions on many given platforms. The popularity of freelancing is attributed to many factors, including flexibility, competitive pricing, and the plethora of opportunities available. This growing field of work, combined with economic underdevelopment compared to more developed economies, has contributed to the formation of large freelance communities in the Western Balkans.
But how can we make freelancing drive inclusive economic development?
For this episode, we have interviewed:
- Elena Dimova, who’s a Certified Digital Marketing Specialist, who’s been freelancing for four years now. She is constantly hustling to cover all bases and so far, she’s held countless roles in the digital marketing space including as Outreach Manager, Community Manager, Search Engine Optimization Analyst, and Content Writer.
- Andi Stefanllari, who’s a senior development practitioner with extensive experience in private sector development, working for a Helvetas-implemented project called RisiAlbania, a youth employment project in Albania of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, as Intervention Manager for the ICT sector. His areas of expertise are designing and implementing market systems development interventions for private sector growth and job creation.
- Elena Ivanova, who’s the Director of Impact Foundation, RECONOMY’s implementing partner in North Macedonia. Elena manages the pilot intervention in self-employment through freelancing in North Macedonia. She is also responsible for designing market systems development interventions for employability mostly in the area of digitalization.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
Market Systems Development has emerged in the past two decades as a way to better deliver large‐scale, sustainable development impact to poor and disadvantaged people. It provides a framework to understand the institutional underlying causes of negative development outcomes and a method of intervening in market systems to achieve poverty reduction sustainably.
But have we ever stopped and looked in the past? Here’s where cost-benefit analysis comes into play. But is cost-benefit analysis also a learning tool which can help steer the future of a project? Why should projects conduct such analyses? And what are some of the experiences?
These are some of the questions we’ve explored in this episode with 3 experts who have experience in managing MSD projects and in conducting cost-benefit analyses:
- Siham Boukhali, who’s managing the SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) mandate for Economic and Financial Analysis at Helvetas. She has multi-country experience working for multinational companies in financial services.
- Pieter Ypma, who’s Project Director of the Enhancing Youth Employment project in Kosovo, which is implemented by Helvetas and financed by the SDC.
- Roman Troxler, who’s a certified and experienced evaluator of employment and economic development projects, for example Helvetas-implemented projects of the SDC like the Enhancing Youth Employment project in Kosovo and the Education for Employment project in North Macedonia.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
In partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and other implementing partners, Helvetas is leading a regional inclusive and green economic development program in Eastern Europe, South Caucuses, and Western Balkans.
While designing the program, we asked ourselves ‘what a regional program would look like’. We’ve been much more interested in the value addition of such a regional program than doing more of the same initiatives that Helvetas has in different countries.
So, for this episode we’ve interviewed 3 experts who have experience in working for such regional programs or initiatives:
- Gina Belle, who’s CEO of Chôra Foundation, a non-profit based in the Netherlands providing access to a strategic framework for System Transformation. Chôra has worked extensively across sectors with leaders and organisations to take systemic perspectives on their challenges and design and manage portfolios that enable decision making and commitment to transformative action in a world of rapidly increasing complexity. Gina brings deep experience leading teams and developing capability for System Transformation. She started life in Australia and has since moved to Europe to expand the work of Chôra beyond the Asia Pacific and has worked globally in the fields of Financial Services, Non-Profit and Human & Social Development.
- Arnaldo Pellini, who’s a co-founder of Capability, which is a Finnish consultancy that focuses on research and advice on the use of problem-driven and adaptive programming approaches to support complex democratic governance initiatives. Over the last 20 years his research and advisory work has been in the areas of education and governance reforms, the ways different types of knowledge can help inform policy decisions, political economy analysis and adaptive development, and the design of monitoring, evaluation and learning systems that can help programmes and projects to adapt continuously to local contexts and circumstances. Arnaldo has lived and worked for about 15 years in various countries in Southeast Asia.
- Harald Bekkers, who’s Founder and Director of Opportunities Unlimited B.V. Harald is a specialist in Market Systems Development and monitoring and results measurement. In 2011, he started the Market Development Facility and led its expansion into a unique multi-country Facility, active in five countries in Asia and the Pacific. Here he championed a realistic interpretation of the MSD approach in thin markets. He also developed a new way of integrating Women’s Economic Empowerment into strategy and partnership design. Harald has lived and worked in more than seven countries.
COVID-19 is transforming people’s relationship to work, with millions now out of a job. And many more getting used to working in a very different way. The pandemic has been a transformation and that raises a whole bunch of questions. Do you need as much expensive office space? And do individual workers need to commute into the office every day?
The need for workers to gather together in offices has shaped almost every aspect of life. And the shift towards remote working could have far-reaching consequences. It could affect gender equality. It could even change how we think about time.
For this episode, we have interviewed:
- Agnieszka Kroskowska, who has supported development programs in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe since 2003. As Gender and Social Equity Coordinator at Helvetas, Agnieszka supports the organization to walk its talk at institutional and country program levels. Thereby she ensures gender equality and social equity are mainstreamed in policies, strategies, procedures, the working areas and in the everyday work at Helvetas and in the field.
- Elena Hadzi Pecova, who has 10 years of business support experience through managing programs and projects, delivering trainings and lecturing, direct consultancy and mentoring. In the last 2 years she’s been an active startup ecosystem builder, leading the investment readiness programs, pre-acceleration and acceleration programs of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development in Skopje, or CEED Hub Skopje, facilitating the investments to the startups, at the same time being the Manager of the CEED Hub Skopje.
- Amar Numanović, who’s a public policy expert and economic development practitioner with experience working with multilateral institutions, international organizations, think tanks, academia and businesses. He is the Head of Investment Portfolio at the MarketMakers project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Also, he is a member of the labor market experts’ network of the European Center of Expertise.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!
Fast learning and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances are critical to the market systems development approach.
Market systems consist of multiple actors with their own goals and points of view and the regional program, RECONOMY, including other projects that apply the Market Systems Development (MSD) approach implemented by Helvetas, operate in complex, dynamic and unpredictable situations, and especially now that we’re in the time of COVID-19.
For this episode, we have interviewed:
- Albina Berisha, who’s project manager of the Enhancing Youth Employment (EYE) in Kosovo, a project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
- Jens Engeli, who leads the Eastern Europe unit at Helvetas, responsible for programs, projects, and mandates portfolio in Eastern Europe, focusing on local governance, decentralization, and local and regional development.
We have interesting topics coming up, so stay tuned!