Technical Brief: Helping Rural Financial Institutions Expand Rural Service Delivery

Access to financial services enables rural households to build financial security, start enterprises, and insure against risks. This access, in turn, generates secondary benefits, improving resilience, health, nutrition, and broad-based economic growth. In 2015, USAID launched the Rural Finance Initiative (RFI), implemented by Chemonics International, to provide technical assistance to financial institutions in Colombia so that they could identify profitable opportunities…

2020 Vision: Three Development Trends of the New Decade

Despite a global commitment, the U.N. estimates that countries and donors need $2.5 trillion in additional finance each year to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, official development assistance in 2018 was $153 billion. The number speaks for itself: the development community simply cannot…

Best of the Blog 2019

Check out our countdown of the 10 most popular blog posts from 2019! 10. To Respond to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis, Let’s Also Tap the Private Sector By Ariana Szepesi-Colmenares As Venezuelan migrants navigate challenges in host countries, the private sector must play an active role in maximizing their economic opportunities. 9. Development Works Here…

Final Report: Integrated Financial Management System

Because of IFMS support, Haitian government agencies had real-time access to expenditure data through the improved IFMS network. Entities can send and receive key data faster and make more informed planning decisions. IFMS installed the UXP, a technology developed in Estonia that enables peer-to-peer data exchange over encrypted and mutually authenticated channels. IFMS contributed to…

Estefania McPhaul

Estefania McPhaul is an economic growth and trade specialist with more than ten years of progressive experience managing complex economic growth projects for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and the International Development Bank. Estefania currently serves as global practice lead of Chemonics’ Economic Growth and Trade (EGT) practice where…

Unlocking Innovation in Pakistan’s Private Sector

In isolated areas of Pakistan, women face a variety of challenges to improving their health and livelihoods. Habiba, a mother of four daughters, treks the mountains of Mansehra to visit the nearest doctor, 10 miles away; she’s in her second trimester of pregnancy. Many young people lack access to quality secondary education due to their…

News: Building Resilience Through Market Systems: Chemonics Presents at SEEP 2019

How can we forge better partnerships to drive agricultural productivity, incomes, and nutrition? How can we use data to empower people and foster resilience? What are the best ways to engage the private sector to make financial services inclusive? Chemonics will discuss these questions and more at the 2019 Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP)…

Protecting Food Value Chains Across Africa

Aflatoxin is a poison produced by a soil fungus that can infect crops, threatening food security, health, and trade in many developing countries; contaminating the food value chain; and costing hundreds of millions of dollars each year in export opportunities. In Africa specifically, aflatoxin causes stunting in children and an estimated 30 percent of all…

3 Questions with Roula Moussa on Private Sector Engagement in Lebanon

Roula Moussa is the CEO and founder of Netways. In 2017, she created DiasporaID, a digital platform that connects and promotes collaboration among Lebanese diaspora communities worldwide. As a partner under the USAID Asia and Middle East Economic Growth Best Practices (AMEG) program, Roula shares her experience pitching and scaling DiasporaID to USAID and recommends…

3 Questions with Najib Seguya on Pay-for-Results Financing

This post originally appeared on Marketlinks. Najib Seguya of the Feed the Future Uganda Youth Leadership in Agriculture (YLA) activity’s Strategic Activities Fund team discusses key considerations to keep in mind when designing a pay-for-results (PfR) program, also known as performance-based financing. Alex Tekakwo, Anthony Nyende, and Sara Tohamy also contributed to this interview. 1.…