Think Creative Fall 2023

Field Notes

Business Development // Dev-Alliance Development Alliance Launched in the Middle East

m Citizen Security

Sembrando Esperanza The five-year USAID Sembrando Esperanza project launched in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in June, a collaboration with the Comisión de Acción Social Menonita, Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo, Centro de Desarrollo Humano and the Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa. The program aims to improve security conditions, with a special focus on youth and families at risk of violence and irregular migration. Co-investment partners, multilateral organizations and government officials learned about the USAID West Africa Trade & Investment Hub’s significant contributions to bolster economic growth, investment opportunities and employment during its hybrid event, “Leveraging Private Sector Engagement to Promote Sustainable Impact,” in Abuja, Nigeria, Sept. 6 & 7. Nigeria LEARN to Read InMay, the NigerianMinistry of Education celebrated the launch of a National Reading Framework to improve early grade reading outcomes. The Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council began working on the National Reading Framework with the USAID-funded Northern Education Initiative Plus and finished it with the support of the USAID-LEARN to Read program. Jordan Technical Assistance Program (TAP) USAID’s TAP program recently won first place in Jordan for USAID’s Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Case Competition. The competition showcases examples of USAID staff and partners using a CLA approach and informs how the agency and its implementers can promote organizational learning for better development results.

Five companies have formed a strategic alliance to address economic, social and educational challenges facing communities in the Middle East and North Africa. The new Development Alliance (Dev-Alliance) in the MENA region leverages talents, skills, cultural knowledge and geographic expertise of the companies—including three in Jordan and one in Palestine—to improve locally conceived, designed and led programs. Leland Kruvant, President and CEO of Creative Associates International, says the five-company Dev-Alliance in the MENA region ensures that local entities with exceptional technical knowledge and geographic roots are at the center of the devel opment efforts, while improving their skills as both initiators and implementers of programs funded by bi-lateral and multilateral donors. “The Dev-Alliance is a collaboration among equals in which partners bring their expertise and insights to the table that ultimately results in better, locally led programming,” says Kruvant. “Local participa tion and ownership have been our core principles for more than 45 years. The Alliance allows our core principles to go deeper in support of com munities and clients.” The Dev-Alliance members in the MENA region include Edvise ME, ConsultUS, Amawi Takrouri & Associates (ATA) and Core Associates, as well as Creative Associates International. When mutually beneficial, Alliance members will collaborate to design and submit proposals to bilateral and multi lateral donors, such as USAID, as well as implement

programs jointly in the areas of economic growth, public sector governance, education and more. Haya Shubailat, a Partner at Edvise ME, a 100 percent women-owned company in Jordan, says the Dev-Alliance is a positive step to ensure that local organizations have a strong and equal voice in the process of designing and implementing development programs. “We at Edvise ME believe in the strength of a locally rooted, globally connected approach to drive change,” she says. “We are thrilled to join the Dev-Alliance. Together we can learn from each other and exchange knowledge and best practices to promote sound development that will benefit our society and the global community.” n have been our core principles for more than 45 years.” - Leland Kruvant, Creative President & CEO Local participation and ownership “

m Economic Growth Trade Hub

m Education

Guatemala // CARI

The Central America Regional Initiative (CARI) won second place in the 2023 USAID Photo

Contest. The photo features a greeting between two youth

Photo by Carlos Garcia arlos García

leaders who are working with the project to make positive changes in their community.

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