While efforts to improve inclusion of learners with disabilities are gaining traction with donors and ministries of education, those efforts largely focus on identification and disability mapping to get policy into place. Approaching inclusive education solely from the lens of policy development leaves the classroom teacher and the children she serves waiting. Practical implementation of…
There are simply not enough health workers to meet the basic health needs of all people worldwide. This prevents development practitioners from contributing to higher-performing health systems, as we struggle to make the most with the health professionals we have available, who are often concentrated in urban areas, working in professional silos, and failing to…
This post originally appeared on Devex. Donor agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, have made private sector engagement, or PSE, a key element of their development strategies. Being more intentional about including the private sector in development is good news. Over the years,…
“Failure is strength. The most effective and innovative organizations are those that are willing to speak openly about their failures because the only truly ‘bad’ failure is one that’s repeated.” —Engineers without Borders, USAID Learning Lab No one wants to fail. And fewer wish to own up to it. Understanding the causes of failure is…
In Alexander Fleming’s 1945 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in honor of his discovery of penicillin, he included a cautionary tale of a young man who was plagued by a sore throat and cough during a leisurely walk home after a long day’s work. The man in Fleming’s story passes a local pharmacy and purchases antibiotics.…
Despite a global commitment, the U.N. estimates that countries and donors need $2.5 trillion in additional finance each year to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, official development assistance in 2018 was $153 billion. The number speaks for itself: the development community simply cannot…
Check out our countdown of the 10 most popular blog posts from 2019! 10. To Respond to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis, Let’s Also Tap the Private Sector By Ariana Szepesi-Colmenares As Venezuelan migrants navigate challenges in host countries, the private sector must play an active role in maximizing their economic opportunities. 9. Development Works Here…
In discussing and measuring project success, the international development community is increasingly turning to “data-driven deliverables” that collect solid, demonstrable data to show project results and to build, design, and implement successful development programs. Yet the development industry, by nature, works in places where high-quality, reliable, and consistent data is hard to collect. Local environments,…
This post originally appeared on Devex. So often international development professionals facilitate incredible change in the most challenging environments, yet it can be difficult to practice what we preach. By the very nature of our work with people from all parts of society, all over the globe, international development firms — including Chemonics — have,…
We’d like you to meet Grace Namaganda! Grace is a human resources for health and management specialist. Grace is the country director of the USAID Human Resources for Health in 2030 (HRH2030) program in Malawi. She shares her 15 years of experience working in the public health sector and explains how she has worked with…
A recent study conducted in the United States found that 81 percent of women and 41 percent of men have experienced some form of sexual harassment or abuse in their lifetime. While limited data makes it difficult to quantify the global scale of sexual violence, stories of street and workplace harassment across the world are…
This post originally appeared on Devex. While the global HIV/AIDS community has made great strides toward the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS’ 90-90-90 goals and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief’s epidemic control goals, there is still a long journey ahead to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Critical to the global…