Abundant natural resources, dynamic energy and agricultural markets, and a free market economy with few limits on foreign investment make Uganda a potentially attractive market for investors. With no shortage of domestic and foreign capital resources, the country is also seeing the emergence of business development and transactions advisory services that match investors with investees…
Bangladesh’s natural ecosystems include forests, freshwater wetlands, and coastal and marine areas, all harboring important animal and plant biodiversity. Many species live under the threat of extinction due to overexploitation of natural resources, land-use change, widespread pollution, and unplanned urbanization. Although significant efforts have addressed these threats and aimed to safeguard Bangladesh’s remaining biodiversity through…
In the global context of the COVID-19 pandemic, new consumer trends and digitization are reshaping markets and firms. Several high-potential economic sectors in Moldova have an opportunity to pivot their recovery and emerge from the pandemic stronger and more successful than before. The Moldova Future Technologies Activity (FTA), funded by USAID, Sweden, and the United…
These briefs serve as a reference point for development practitioners interested in leveraging blended finance approaches in project design and delivery and improving the quality of engagement with the private sector. They include a primer that provides a targeted, high-level overview of blended finance mechanisms to contextualize the sector-specific technical briefs. The briefs also articulate…
Barbara Rossmiller is currently a director in Chemonics’ Water, Energy and Sustainable Cities (WESC) practice, responsible for technical leadership in water, sanitation, and hygiene programming. She is a senior water and sanitation, sector governance, and institutional strengthening specialist with nearly 30 years of experience in international development. In previous roles as chief of party, Barbara led…
Since the end of its civil war, Lebanon has shown incredible resilience through recent events such as the Arab Spring and the Syrian armed conflict, which resulted in an influx of refugees and significant shifts in agricultural trading. The ongoing impact of the Beirut blast and the pandemic have only furthered the country’s extreme political…
One-third of Indonesia’s 75,000 villages, home to 32 million people, lie within or adjacent to land dedicated by the government for forestry or conservation. All Indonesian citizens depend on healthy ecosystems for goods and services, including water, soil, forest products, and others that underpin sustainable development. However, weak governance, a lack of private sector commitment,…
The USAID Durable Communities and Economic Opportunities (DCEO) activity addresses the conflict’s underlying drivers by building Iraq’s local communities’ resilience. Under the Business Competitiveness and Job Creation Initiative (BCJCI) and 100 Solutions for Stability Task Orders, DCEO bolsters community members’ ability to advocate for the changes their communities need and supports private sector networks to…
Women in Haiti are often at social, political, and economic disadvantages compared to their male counterparts, as evidenced by Haiti’s ranking in the Gender Inequality Index. The gap is especially significant and consequential for rural women who engage primarily in subsistence farming with little to no access to or control over productive assets and financial…
Growing up in Islamic State-held territories, young Syrians have lived through traumatic experiences. Subsequently, many children have become desensitized to violence and developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a result, conflict-affected children urgently need mental health support. Chemonics’ Injaz program is primarily an education project. It works with children in both formal and informal settings, including…
In frontier and conflict markets, identifying promising businesses and supporting their development is critical for creating jobs in an environment of inclusive growth. USAID’s Investment Facilitation Activity in the DRC (USAID Invest) is a five-year program that aims to foster private investments into the DRC. By cultivating a pipeline of high-potential businesses across sectors, with…
Niki Wood is an award-winning mixed-methods Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) expert, specialising in weaving together behavior change theory, complexity science, and systems-thinking into accessible and participatory approaches for project teams. She is currently the MEL Practice Lead at Chemonics UK. Niki has led the design and delivery of complexity-sensitive MEL for projects funded by…