In March 2014, the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project launched a call for example seeking programs
that were linking push and pull strategies into a more interactive implementation framework. The collective understanding of push/pull was still very much evolving, and as a community—including LEO, USAID, and development organizations—this open call for examples was intended to help get a sense of the state of practice, canvas experiences from a wide range of projects, and inform how LEO prioritized its work in this area.

Of 53 submissions received, 33 were determined relevant for LEO’s specific learning agenda and were reviewed by a committee of representatives from USAID, LEO, the SEEP Network, and the MaFI (Market Facilitation Initiative) and STEP UP (Strengthening the Economic Potential of the Ultra Poor) working groups. Nine cases were selected for further exploration, four of which are presented in this document.

This call for examples solidified awareness of the need for LEO to look more closely at various models in practice, and—drawing on project experience as well as thought leadership and an informal review of literature—to develop a framework paper that outlined key characteristics that define a push/pull approach.