Pragma
Pragma

Practice Areas

Practice Areas

CATALYZING BUSINESS AND JOB GROWTH​

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are drivers of economic and job growth. Pragma’s unique approaches identify ways for companies to tap into growth-oriented opportunities and integrate the most appropriate technologies, systems, and quality standards.

All are aimed to enhance competitiveness and tap job generation potential. Our solutions include tools and incentives to improve SMEs’ access to finance and integrate workforce development activities so companies can find employees with the job skills they need to succeed. We also find creative connections to link businesses to more lucrative markets at home or abroad.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Access to Finance
  • Agribusiness Development 
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship 
  • Small and Medium Enterprise Business Development 
  • Value Chain and Market Systems Development 
  • Women-led Enterprises and Business Opportunities
  • Workforce Development

INSTITUTING MACRO-LEVEL TRANSFORMATIONS

To create truly transformative and large-scale change, Pragma conducts analyses and field interventions at the level of national or regional economies. We excel in applying demonstrated best practices to real world economic governance and growth challenges that meet international standards, inject transparency, and strengthen public financial management. Our activities target institutional reforms and capacity building that help advance prosperity, stability, and greater inclusion—especially in challenging, post-conflict environments.

Our teams consist of seasoned experts—including former Central Bank, Ministry, or Government Bureau officials—who understand how to affect desired changes within the complexities and contexts of our projects. Through strategic support and collaboration, Pragma fosters institution building and stronger public financial management to enhance public service delivery, reduce corruptive practice incentives, and improve the regulatory environment to support private sector growth and solutions.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Anti-Corruption
  • Business Environment Reform
  • Capital and Financial Market Development
  • Central Banking
  • Credit Bureau Development
  • Energy/Electricity Sector Reform
  • Financial Sector Reform
  • Government Accountability
  • Monetary Policy Reform
  • Mortgage Market Development
  • Pension Development 
  • Public Communications and Engagement
  • Public Financial Management
  • Telecommunications Reform
  • Transparency

OPTIMIZING TRADE AND INVESTMENT

Pragma’s trade experts work with the public and private sectors to reduce costs and delays by modernizing customs procedures, improving logistics processes, and promoting economic integration through regional and international trade, transit, and investment agreements.

We have a proven track record of promoting economic growth in developing countries by helping them attract foreign direct investment. We achieve this by reforming laws, regulations, and procedures to lower the costs of doing business and of importing/exporting.

Combining trade and investment expertise with real-time ground-level insights, we work with a diverse network of public, private, and non-profit partners to match businesses with trade and investment opportunities.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) Status
  • Customs Reform and Cross Border Trade
  • Digitization and Web-based Systems for Customs Processes
  • Foreign Investment
  • Regional Trade Promotion
  • Quality Management, Standards, and Metrology
  • World Trade Organization (WTO) Accession

EMPOWERING WOMEN

All too often, women face significant gender disparities in educational, training, and employment opportunities due to social and cultural hurdles. They may be excluded from the broader job market and restricted to a limited number of sectors, such as education, nursing, or handicraft making. This employment gender gap imposes adverse outcomes, including lost productivity and economic growth, not only for the women themselves, but also for wider society. 

At Pragma, we have a talent for finding creative employment solutions for women that meet their motivation to be active labor market participants, while also respecting the need to stay within—or gently push—cultural conventions. We strongly support women’s capacity-building, technical assistance, coaching, networking, and mentoring to enhance their business skills, employment access, market access and linkages, control of economic resources, and income generation capacity. Working with local partners and other entities, we ensure our activities reach women who may be isolated, displaced by conflict, or struggling to meet family needs and create positive and lasting impacts well beyond the life of our projects.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Business Skills Development
  • Gender Equity
  • Gendered Analysis
  • Market Linkages
  • Women-led Businesses
  • Women’s Employment
  • Workforce Development

ENHANCING LIVELIHOODS

Small-scale agriculture—including crops, livestock, and fisheries—remains a primary source of livelihoods for many people around the world. But production levels are not what they could be due to outdated and inefficient practices and limited market access, which directly aggravates rural poverty. Pragma’s projects work across the full value chains of key commodities to increase the quality, productivity, and profits that transform livelihoods, and improve the lives of farmers, their households, and communities.

Our support and trainings promote adoption of simple technologies and better use of scarce resources that improve production, reduce costs, and eliminate wastage. By introducing best practices, we help actors across the full value chain meet international quality standards that open doors to higher value markets, locally and abroad. Working across value chains, we strive to ensure that benefits flow back upstream to improve livelihoods for farmers and fishermen, as well as those who trade and process their products.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Buyer-led Approach
  • Climate-Smart Technologies
  • Demonstration Sites
  • Fisheries
  • Livestock
  • Market Linkages
  • Niche Markets
  • Quality Standards/Enhancement
  • Sales Agreements
  • Value-addition

ADVANCING SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS

At Pragma, we are committed to a more sustainable world for all. As such, we integrate green technologies and climate-smart agriculture into our project activities. Even in oil and gas-rich countries that have long depended on fossil fuel production to power their economies and public expenditures, we help to establish the reforms, regulations, and technical systems for more firmly incorporating clean energies and energy efficiencies. We partner with farmers and businesses to reduce wastage and make use of technologies that protect precious resources of water, soil, and local ecosystems. Our support for small and medium enterprises extends to green technology businesses, which we work with to improve operational and management systems, workforce skills, and competitiveness.

Importantly, we believe in advancing sustainable livelihoods among farmers and entrepreneurs, particularly in fragile and challenging environments, to enhance their resilience to adversity and ability to stay the course to a brighter future.

Areas of Expertise:

  • Climate-Smart Agriculture
  • Electricity Sector Reform
  • Energy Efficiency Standards and Reforms
  • Multi-Donor Clean Energy Initiatives
  • Solar and Wind Technology