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The importance of flexibility in public policy

One of the projects within the Mozambique Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) is the MUVA Eleva Gender Centred Human Centered Design acceleration programme. This project seeks to address four of the nine barriers to women entrepreneurship identified in the World Bank’s 2019 ‘Profiting from Parity’ report (Education and skills gaps; Finance and assets; Social norms; and Access to networks and information).

The acceleration program comprises three bootcamps and research activities, where the entrepreneurs learn how to obtain accurate insights specific to their businesses and receive individual support. It also allows the participants to implement their solutions while receiving support from the team. The whole program was designed to take around six months and, of course, involved physical interaction with the participants, as it was conceived for “normal” times.

However, as we all know, COVID-19 happened, and things are not “normal” anymore. We have all had to adapt to the “new normal”, including this intervention. Some of the adjustments are transforming into a mix of virtual classes, ongoing telephone support, and workbooks. While I did not have the chance to get too involved in this project, I attended a session with the team. Despite the language barrier (I am not fluent in Portuguese!), it was inspiring to see how committed everyone was with finding the best possible alternatives.

This brings me back to some of the frameworks I have studied as part of my program’s curriculum. Sometimes we learn these frameworks thinking that they are very theoretical or only useful in the cases that we studied in class. But real-life examples like this are a reminder that all of the tools I am learning now will be valuable once I graduate and go back to work. I am particularly thinking about the Adaptative Methods I learned in my “Getting Things Done: Management in a Development Context” class. I guess that this approach will now be more relevant than ever in public policy.

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