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.