Devastating cyclones and global pandemics like COVID-19 can distract Mozambicans from addressing the pervasive problem of malaria, which is often seen as a part of daily life even though it is responsible for 29 percent of all deaths in the country. As COVID-19 spreads through Mozambique’s northern provinces, Antonio Mussa, chief of party of the Chemonics-led…
This post originally appeared on Inclusive Development Partners Blog. Beyond the fact that many employers worldwide are required to provide reasonable accommodations , creating accessible and inclusive remote work environments can drive productivity and innovation as well as increase morale. In fact, working remotely has been considered a reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. And while ensuring inclusiveness, accessibility, and…
As chief of party for the USAID Digital Liberia and e-Government project, Vicki Cooper led efforts to strengthen Liberia’s health, education, and economic growth sectors through enhanced information, communication, and technology capabilities in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic. 1. How can the global development community use lessons learned from the Ebola crisis in Liberia…
At 1 a.m., Winnie, the midwife at a small health clinic in a rural town in Uganda, was startled awake when the security guard from the clinic pounded on her door—a woman had arrived in labor. When Winnie arrived at the facility, she was surprised to see Clara, a young woman expecting her first baby…
Over the last 20 years, global efforts have dramatically reduced the malaria burden thanks to innovative partnerships and sustained funding to scale-up effective interventions and use better data for decision-making. More countries are closer than ever to elimination. But there is still work to be done, especially as new public health threats such as…
While most development projects use some form of remote management — U.S.-based home offices oversee project offices, main offices in capitals oversee satellite offices, and teams are distributed across multiple countries (e.g., FEWS NET) — the COVID-19 pandemic presents uncharted territories for many in the global development sector. Travel and movement restrictions, work from home…
The full implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are yet to be determined, but it has disrupted nearly every aspect of socioeconomic activity at a breadth and scale not seen in modern memory. Now activities that once seemed routine — school, work, travel, errands, and social gatherings —present serious health risks, and the resulting lockdown is…
As Lead Scale Partner for the UNLEASH Global Innovation Lab, Chemonics was excited to organize and participate in a recent hackathon for UNLEASH alumni living in the GMT-4 time zone. The GMT-4 “hack” was one of six simultaneous hackathons that gathered 350 innovative thinkers from around the world to address challenges presented by the COVID-19…
This blog post has been adapted from an article in Journal of Social Science & Medicine – Population Health. If you’ve worked in development for long enough, at some point you’ve scratched your head about why a technically sound strategy achieved less than expected results. As the old business adage goes, “Culture eats strategy for…
This post was adapted from a post that originally appeared on the USAID HRH2030 program’s website. Gender sensitivity is often overlooked in the slew of daily health care inquiries directed to service providers. And yet, gender norms—how a society ascribes day-to-day roles, rights, and responsibilities to women and men—play a significant role in client-provider interactions. Reproductive…
Emerging economies such as Colombia, Philippines, and South Africa offer sophisticated financial sectors that historically failed to reach marginalized groups. In Colombia specifically, this left rural areas largely unbanked and excluded from the broader economy, after decades of war. In four years, USAID/Colombia’s Rural Finance Initiative (RFI) — implemented by Chemonics — has linked more…
During the past two years, the USAID Honduras Quality Reading Materials Activity (QRMA) Project worked with the Ministry of Education to acquire, print, and distribute more than 3 million teaching and learning materials. Chief of Party Juan Felipe Sanchez Franco offers some insight about the project’s successful collaboration with the ministry and other stakeholders. How did partnerships…