USAID’s recent Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, brought together nearly 100 men and women dedicated to advancing women’s economic empowerment and equality throughout Africa and beyond. Over a period of two and a half days, we discussed USAID’s new draft Framework to Promote Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality, listened to…
Malaria, transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito, killed an estimated 438,000 people in 2015, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. While this is still an unacceptable situation for an entirely preventable disease, the 2015 mortality figure actually represents a 48 percent decrease over the past fifteen years. Much of this progress has been through tremendous scale-up of frontline…
This blog post was originally published by Digital Globe. Over three years of internal conflict in South Sudan has led to severe food and nutrition insecurity. Nearly one-third of the population is in need of emergency food assistance, and the spread of violence has displaced 3.4 million people across South Sudan and into neighboring countries…
Often, the success of nationally funded programs hinges on budget allocation. “Show me the money,” is a saying that reflects this reality, meaning that what gets funded gets done. Below, we will walk through the principles of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), which highlights the budget design stage as a critical opportunity for intervention. This post will…
This blog post originally appeared on ClimateLinks. In backpacking across Africa as a recent college graduate, James Colborn felt drawn to the place and the people and wanted to do more than just travel around as a tourist. Soon after, he found his calling in global health. Today, Colborn has a Ph.D. in parasitology and…
More people live in cities now than at any point in history. As identified in Sustainable Development Goal 11 and highlighted in the New Urban Agenda formulated out of the Habitat III Conference last year, our challenge is to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Goal 11 and the New Urban…
This is a guest blog post that was originally posted on Ventures Africa. While gas shortages, inadequate transmission, and losses pose critical bottlenecks, the main challenge for the power sector in Nigeria is the lack of liquidity (or weak commercial viability) of actors along the value chain — from gas-to-power production to power generation, transmission,…
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in September 2015 by U.N. member states, set the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and helped frame political and economic policies. The 17 SDGs build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and call for bold action to address a broad range of development issues including achieving…
Homicides in Mexico had been steadily falling since hitting their peak between 2010 and 2011, but sudden spikes in 2015 and 2016 are causing the international community to look around for answers. October 2016 was the most violent month in nearly four years, appearing to wipe out recent progress. The good news is that based…
People often give me puzzled looks when I try to describe my job here, and I don’t blame them. Since 2015 I have worked on an international development program that supports the Philippines’ shift from a cash-based economy to a cash-light economy, which will improve the livelihoods of Filipinos by getting more people involved in…
It’s 7:30 p.m. on a typical Tuesday evening in Kampala, Uganda, and Grace Kagawa is rushing to her small home in the Bwaise slum. After an 11-hour day working as a street sweeper downtown, and with little time and space to prepare the evening meal in her single-room home, the options for nourishing her two…
Negros, the fourth-largest island in the Philippines, is best known for sugar and grilled chicken. However, the charcoal that fuels restaurant owners’ income challenges the source of livelihood for rice and sugar farmers. What is the link between a tasty grilled chicken and a cup of rice? Well, the demand for charcoal puts pressure on…