Robyn Tompkins is a water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) specialist based in Maun, Botswana. She is Botswana’s national Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) consultant and the senior WASH advisor to the USAID Resilient Waters Program. 1. What is the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS)…
To achieve health for all, the global health community needs the participation of everyone working in the health system: public, private, or not-for-profit. Often global health programming focuses on public sector health systems. But, by some accounts, faith-based organizations deliver between 30 and 70 percent of health services across sub-Saharan Africa. To provide equitable and accessible health services…
Scott Short is a water and natural resource specialist with more than 35 years of experience managing WASH and water security, institutional strengthening, and land and natural resource management programs. Prior to joining Chemonics, he served as chief of party for the USAID Ethiopia Lowland Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Activity (Lowland WASH) in Ethiopia. Pastoral…
Happy International Women’s Day! This is an important day to reflect on and celebrate the critical contributions that women make to our society, our workplaces, and lives. There is so much to be proud of and still much to do to ensure women have equitable access and recognition for their amazing contributions. I am excited…
Development is not working — at least not at the scale or pace needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This is the central, fact-based premise behind calls and movements to do development differently from host-country recipients of aid, international organizations, donors, and implementing partners. Such calls emphasize adaptive, locally-owned, problem-solving approaches to tackle chronic development challenges.…
One of the most common areas of confusion when talking about innovation, especially in the development world, is the difference between being innovative, facilitating (or fostering) innovation, and creating a culture (or an ecosystem) of innovation. For practitioners who already face significant time and resource constraints, it can be hard to differentiate between these buzzword-y…
Among the top emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, South Africa has redoubled its efforts to reduce emissions by expanding renewable energy generation. Several municipalities have set ambitious local clean energy goals that go beyond national targets. Yet, despite these ambitious aims, many municipalities in South Africa lack the technical capacity, access to finance,…
It’s easy enough to talk about using the Principles for Digital Development (PDD). This set of best practices for technology usage, developed by donors, implementers, and stakeholders around the world, has been increasingly embraced the past few years and with good reason: they provide straightforward, intuitive guidance on how to choose and use appropriate technology…
This post originally appeared on the APICS blog. Companies work tirelessly to optimize supply chain management and enhance end-to-end performance. From agribusiness to information technology, we all strive for better data, stronger foresight and breakthrough innovations. And, of course, we want that all-important metric — on-time delivery. But the global health sector confronts a unique…
With each passing year and technological advancement, society creates more data. This much data can be both a blessing and a curse. We have an expectation that with more data, better decisions will surely follow. Of course, this assumes that we understand what the data is telling us. With so much data coming at us,…
Whether you’re in line at the supermarket or online ordering clothes, nearly every item has a barcode. This barcode is one of many standardized methods for indicating the quality of a product. With a standard method for product identification and data collection, you can track where a product came from and where it is going.…
Check out our countdown to the most popular posts from 2018:* 10. Making Development Dollars Go Further By Spencer Parsons and Gabriel Gonzalez-Kreisberg It will require an extra $2.5 trillion to achieve the SDGs. Can the development community find creative ways to fill that gap? 9. How Can Countries Pay for Their Health Systems? Supply Chains Might…