When COVID-19 hit Tajikistan in early 2020, it soon became clear that supplemental oxygen would be the most essential life-saving treatment for those who fell severely ill. Tajikistan’s health system, like many in lower- and middle-income countries, was unprepared to meet the needs of COVID-19 patients. In India, for example, people formed long queues outside…
Taking managed risks to achieve a desired outcome is a given for successful supply chain work, but risks elevate to a whole other level when working in a country at war. That was the case this year, when Chemonics helped deliver nearly 210,000 bottles of life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs) into Ukraine, enough to ensure that roughly…
From earthquakes to cyclones to epidemics and a pandemic, the global health supply chain has been rattled far and wide in recent years. Managing it is a daily exercise in creativity and risk management, but balancing these two factors is tricky, and the cost of failure can mean people are unable to access the lifesaving medications…
Last week, the blackout that shut down much of Bangladesh for seven hours starting at 2 pm local time on October 4th – followed by days of more frequent load-shedding than before the outage – underscores the inadequacy of the country’s energy sector to power its dynamic economy and growing population. Despite years of expansion…
What is our future if we do not work together towards change? Ayisha Siddiqa may have said it best, “If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing. What if we convince her to stay? How rare and beautiful it is that we exist. What if we stun…
Money is going digital, full steam ahead. Within the past five years, interest around Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) has exploded. Nearly 100 CBDCs are currently in research or development stages, with CBDCs in Nigeria and the Bahamas already launched. Unlike volatile cryptocurrency assets (e.g., bitcoin and stablecoins), CBDCs offer promising development benefits through central…
A deep understanding of the gender and social norms, and the complexities influencing stability, is needed to ensure stabilization programming is addressing the right problem, in the right way. This often starts with talking to members of the community and local colleagues, reading reports, and, these days, monitoring social media to track trends. In challenging,…
Trust flavors our life choices. It lays the foundations of our social and professional relationships. It colors the way we engage with organizations, services, and people. Globally, trust in public institutions appears to be decaying. The ‘fake news’ phenomenon has damaged perceptions of traditional media. The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to widespread vaccine hesitancy, in some…
In this “Perspective” post, Marvie Javed, a senior specialist in Environment and Natural Resources at Chemonics who is based in Lahore, Pakistan, reflects on the recent flooding in the country and considers the following question: What are some immediate actions that climate experts and development practitioners can take to help protect vulnerable communities and to…
Evidence-based decision making not only leads to more successful development outcomes, it can also enable improved agility on projects, allowing changes to be made as fresh information becomes available. Jennifer Simpson, Chemonics’ new senior advisor for applied research, explains why development practitioners should focus as much on applied research as on other aspects of development…
“Research enables us to identify how best to address the challenges that impact society. The good thing is that governments are starting to acknowledge the potential for research to drive national development.” Joy is unequivocal, and her belief in her work is easy to see. “This is my passion: ensuring that evidence can impact policy…
COVID-19 and Russia’s war on Ukraine have severely disrupted global agricultural markets leading to severe food insecurity implications. The impact of these events demonstrates the importance of building the resilience of smallholder farming households and the market and food systems of which they are a part. Resilient households and local market systems can quickly adjust…