3 Building Blocks for Mobilizing Inclusive Climate Finance

The private sector, recognizing the economic threat and global calls to climate action, has mobilized corporate pledges to avert climate disaster and bridge the nearly $4 trillion financing gap for climate financing by 2030. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), nearly 500 global financial services firms agreed to align $130 trillion – some…

Navigating Enterprise-Destroying Pitfalls in SME Assistance

The elusive quest for economic growth is one of much trial and error. Its complexity is multiplied when considering the concurrent goals of resilience, inclusion, sustainability, and being broad-based and private-sector led. Forming an evidence-based and multi-sectoral strategy tackling this very problem is the herculean task that USAID’s latest economic growth policy faces. Even with a great strategy…

How Careful Use of Technology Can Guide Climate-Sensitive Peacebuilding

Countries already suffering from conflict and instability are often also on the frontlines of climate change. In Mali, rainfall has decreased by about 30% in the last 40 years, a severe crisis in a country where 80% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. In Yemen, climate change has increased the country’s vulnerability to droughts and floods, deepening acute…

3 Questions with Chris Perine on Chemonics’ Climate Group

Chemonics has decades of deep climate adaptation, mitigation, and management experience. Our new Climate Group helps us consolidate all of our accumulated experience, coordinate the deployment of our in-house expertise, and more systematically address climate risks and opportunities in our current project portfolio and new business efforts. 1. What do you see as key challenges…

Best of the Blog 2021

Check out our countdown of the 10 most popular* blog posts from 2021! 10. Creating a Sustainable Peace Deal in Yemen: A Discussion with Ahmed Al Khameri By Ahmed Al Khameri Yemen’s conflict is a multi-layered and complicated power struggle that reflects historical grievances over political and economic exclusion as much as current domestic and…

How 58 Policies Are Helping Guide Ecological Restoration in Brazil

Driven by technological advances in soil management, improved seed quality, and modern farming practices, Brazil experienced an agricultural revolution over the past few decades that has transformed the country’s economy, society, and outlook. Brazil’s Cerrado biome, where the rich farmlands of the Matopiba region are located, illustrate, both the benefits and challenges of this transformation.…

Three Successful Approaches for Reducing the Malaria Burden in Mozambique

Globally, only a small handful of countries are responsible for 95 percent of all malaria cases and deaths. In 2019, five countries made up more than half of the 229 million global case burden, while six countries accounted for 51 percent of the 409,000 malaria deaths. That same year, Mozambique was on both lists and accounted for…

Safeguarding Women and Girls with Disabilities During Natural Disasters and External Shocks

Individuals with disabilities, particularly women and girls, have long been excluded from planning and responding to natural disasters, the impacts of climate change, and external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Research indicates that natural disasters and pandemics exacerbate pre-existing inequities, disproportionately affecting women and girls and increasing their risk of violence, abuse, and exploitation…

Development Works Here with Karina Perez Jvostova

We’d like you to meet Karina Perez Jvostova! Karina is Chemonics’ monitoring, evaluation, and learning specialist for USAID’s Violence Prevention and Reduction Activity in Mexico. In this video, she shares her path to global development, what she learned as an UNLEASH ambassador, and advice for those interested in working in the development sector. Posts on the blog represent the…

Guiding Principles for Integrating the Private Sector in Democracy and Governance

The intractable challenges associated with effective, sustainable, fully financed service delivery and community improvement require a more comprehensive approach to financing. Budget shortfalls, misused public funds, and the absence of innovative and responsive policies also erode trust in democratic systems in a world increasingly contending with nondemocratic movements. This blog post examines the merits of…

3 Questions with Markos Layton: Ensuring Oxygen Availability to Save Lives

During the COVID-19 pandemic, oxygen has been a critical global commodity used to relieve patients of acute respiratory difficulties caused by the virus. Following the recent release of the USAID Implementation Plan for the U.S. COVID-19 Global Response and Recovery Framework, we sat down with Oxygen Deputy Team Lead Markos Layton to hear about his…

How Chemonics Is Mobilizing Finance for Development

USAID is putting self-reliance at the core of its strategy to help countries achieve and finance their own development objectives and thereby end their need for foreign assistance. To finance self-reliance, countries will need systems that mobilize and spend public resources efficiently, enabling environments that allow the private sector to thrive, and diverse and well-regulated…