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…
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) is a USAID-funded project that compiles data and warns of impending food insecurity in almost 40 countries around the world. The eyes of the world are on South Sudan right now after famine was declared on February 20. The threat of famine also looms in Somalia, Yemen,…
What is “secure enough” tenure? The concept of “secure enough” tenure has been discussed in the context of humanitarian and post-disaster programming and increasingly through donor initiatives. In our new paper, we adopt the following definition of secure enough tenure, established by USAID: “[T]he benchmark of tenure security [is] when rights to land and natural…
What is cross-sectoral democracy, rights, and governance (DRG) programming and why is it important? Cross-sectoral DRG programming recognizes that development issues are not single-sector problems — they overlap with other sectors; exist in a political context; and are as much, and often more, about power and relationships as they are about technical solutions. Solving a…