This activity was one of the four winners of Chemonics’ recent Market Systems and Youth Enterprise Development Innovation Contest within the market systems track.This post originally appeared on Marketlinks. Working in a market system can mean that no endeavor or initiative is too big or too small if it can lead to transformative change. In Pakistan,…
Most development practitioners know what an indicator is. It measures a particular characteristic or dimension of strategy-, project-, or activity-level results. It is meant to tell you (i.e. indicate), how far or close you are to your identified result. For example, if you are trying to lose weight, your indicator is your daily weight according…
I had the recent good fortune of attending the 8th Session of the World Water Forum in Brazil — what a grand affair! There was a packed program full of fascinating technical sessions held in parallel; three huge marquee tents full of exhibitors from governments, international agencies, and companies; and local community groups, NGOs, and entrepreneurs engaging thousands…
In response to increasing security challenges worldwide, the international donor community is placing greater emphasis on citizen security programming. Citizen security can be defined as “the process of establishing, strengthening and protecting democratic civic order, eliminating threats of violence in a population and allowing for safe and peaceful coexistence.” As one example, the U.S. government strategy for…
A recent article highlighted the staggering disparities that persist in maternal and neonatal outcomes in America. The disparities are in part because of societal and racial bias within the health-care system. In New York, black women are four times more likely than white women to die in childbirth. Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia are life-threatening pregnancy-related conditions that are sixty percent more…
We are mission-driven. We care about people. We have a passion for making a difference in the world. This is the siren song of international development. The global nature of our work, our highly competent and compassionate people, and our noble intentions make it easy to believe that as an industry, we are insulated from…
Although adaptive management is widely promoted — and often required — for development programs, its basic principles can be difficult to adhere to. Strict timelines and prescribed indicators often demand immediate success — success now. How do we implement this seemingly simple approach, which is measured by failure more than success, and requires experienced technical…
Have you ever asked yourself “did the person who built this software system ever even remotely talk to anyone that has to use it?” I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you (like me) have. Digital transformation efforts are littered with cautionary tales of designing tone-deaf systems that don’t meet the…
This post originally appeared on Marketlinks. Development practitioners are often innovating, piloting, and problem-solving — but sometimes these initiatives have a hard time getting disseminated past the project annual report. At Chemonics, the Economic Growth and Trade Practice and the Education and Youth Practice joined forces to kick off 2018 with the launch of our…
This post was adapted from one that originally appeared on the USAID Human Resources for Health in 2030 (HRH2030) program’s website. Samantha Law is a manager with Chemonics’ Global Health Division and serves as gender lead on USAID HRH2030. People and organizations work daily to augment the voices and rights of women around the globe. There…
The development world is no stranger to human-centered design. Many of the basic principles — working with stakeholders to understand their needs, reframing core issues, taking a pilot-based approach to program design and refinement — have been part of the development discourse, in one form or another, for the last few decades. And as a formalized process, it’s…
African governments have contested elections on a platform of ridding the country of corruption for many years. They berate predecessors for not doing enough, when they have no tangible plans for addressing corruption’s root cause, the lack of integrity. If a lack of integrity is the root cause of corruption, then it is important to…