Ibrahim Osta is the chief of party for the Building Economic Sustainability Through Tourism (BEST) program in Jordan, which focuses on improving the country’s tourism sector and ensuring that Jordan has the skilled workforce needed to keep the sector competitive. The BEST program works at the intersection of tourism and economic development. Could you elaborate…
The Maximizing Agricultural Revenue and Key Enterprises in Targeted Sites (MARKETS II) project trained master trainers and individuals from national and international organizations, including their beneficiaries. The project also targeted agricultural value chain segments that are more favorable for the involvement of woman and youth, such as service providers, processing, and micro-enterprises. The value of…
The Maximizing Agricultural Revenue and Key Enterprises in Targeted Sites (MARKETS II) was USAID/Nigeria’s flagship project under Feed the Future (FTF). It aimed to sustainably improve the performance, income, nutrition, and food security of poor Nigerian rural farmers or smallholders in an environmentally friendly manner. Key objectives included smallholder farmer access to increased income, ready…
September marks a key step in global development’s future. U.N. member states will convene the Sustainable Development Summit this September to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — a set of 17 newly proposed goals to guide the global development community in improving the lives of the poor and eradicating poverty. The SDGs expand on and refine the Millennium Development…
This post was originally published by the Global Harvest Initiative, and is cross-posted with permission. Nigeria has a powerful potential for productive agriculture with linkages to growing consumer demand. Living in Abuja and working in the field of agriculture, I witness this potential of agriculture to help improve the lives of farmers, not only in…
Moldova’s IT sector has been seen as a catalyst for economic development with opportunity for quick growth, but assistance was needed. The sector suffered from poor infrastructure, an inexperienced labor force, and was in need of improvements to management practices. USAID’s CEED and CEED II activities have shown that the more Moldova invests in its…
Standing among shelves stacked high with row upon row of giant cheese wheels, Eko-sir Pudja Livno production manager Marijan Puda looks like a proud father. “Our main product is Livanjski cheese,” he says. “That is our pride and joy. It is a cheese which is recognized worldwide and has won many awards in both domestic and European…
What is new or different about what this project is doing that could have implications for other agriculture initiatives? What’s different about this project is the involvement of the private sector from the time of conceptualizing an idea. For example, look at rice. When we met with the rice processors and asked what their challenges…
Uganda has the world’s youngest population with over 78 percent of its population below the age of 30. Though the country also has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, many of Uganda’s young adults have limited interest in pursuing careers in agriculture because they see it as a subsistence livelihood, or…
Some people still talk about climate change as if it is a future threat, rather than something we are facing now. Is this a challenge in your work in Mozambique? We deal with this every day—there is this absence of urgency about what’s going on. There’s still a confusion about disaster risk reduction and climate…
Sometimes, individuals have to advocate for themselves to gain access to their legal rights. Bibirajab Boymakhmadova knows this first hand. Bibirajab is a female farmer in Tajikistan, and one of over 30 shareholders in a mid-sized farm called Khirobon. In Tajikistan, the government has passed a series of laws to restructure collective farms, allowing agricultural…
On Friday, April 24, HBO aired a segment on its newsmagazine, VICE, titled “Haitian Money Pit” in which Chemonics is mentioned, along with numerous other organizations. The segment does not provide a complete or accurate picture of Chemonics’ work in Haiti over the past five years. Few areas of international aid have attracted as much…