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Mandera County, the second poorest county in Kenya, grapples with recurrent drought, seasonal flooding, violent extremism, and economic alienation from the rest of the country. Over 89 percent of Mandera’s 900,000 residents live below the poverty line.

In Rwanda, relatively few households consume eggs — even though eggs offer a range of nutritional benefits, especially for children and pregnant and lactating women.

FES Vice President Roberta Lauretti-Bernhard participated in the the Specialty Coffee Association EXPO (SCA) in Chicago April 10 -14. FES & Joe Coffee Company  co-hosted a lecture on "Gender Equity in 2024: Women in the Global Coffee Value Chain". The event was developed by Roberta, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray from Joe Coffee and Karen Cebreros, founder of Elan Organic Coffee and co-founder of the Int’l Women in Coffee Alliance (IWCA).

The December 7, 2023 Finance Champions meeting featured four finance-focused presentations on:

Introduction

Society Development Committee, or SDC, based in Faridpur, Bangladesh, is a microfinance partner of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Livestock and Nutrition Activity, funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA. Through this partnership, thousands of people working in Bangladesh’s livestock sector have benefited from microfinance products.

Accessible finance is vital for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Yet, oftentimes, they struggle to access financing from traditional sources because they lack the knowledge to produce comprehensive financial documentation required by banks. Meanwhile, financial institutions may perceive small businesses as higher risk clients due to their size, limited track record, and insufficient collateral. In many countries, like Rwanda, financial institutions have limited knowledge in the livestock value chain financing opportunities compared to crops value chain.

In rapid response to the abrupt trade disruptions resulting from Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea—a tactic in its war on Ukraine, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Agriculture Resilience Initiative (AGRI)-Ukraine. AGRI-Ukraine is critical to supporting Ukraine’s export and agricultural sector needs, which are expected to remain vulnerable to the Russian Federation’s aggression in the months and years to come.

Revolutionizing Drug Development with AI TechnologyThe advent of AI technology has revolutionized several sectors, one of which is drug development and validation. The potential of AI technology in informing the processes such as the development of antibodies and optimizing molecules is progressively substantial. AI technology has made it easier, faster, and more accurate to train models, validate antibodies, and optimize molecules for drug development.

The Finance Champions group was established in March 2023 with the aim to share innovative approaches being tested by USAID Missions, Bureaus and Independent Offices and to exchange learning on the topic of mobilizing finance in development. This group, which is internal to USAID, meets every six weeks, and has grown from an initial group of 20 to 160 members.

Developed through a partnership between the USAID and Mastercard, Project Kirana focused on helping women micro entrepreneurs gain the tools they need to grow their businesses in India. Project Kirana recognized the complex set of problems encountered by women micro entrepreneurs in India: limited business and digital financial capabilities, and limited access to formal financial services. By equipping women entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools they needed — including financial and digital literacy expertise, business management skills, and strategies for addressing cultural barriers — over 2,500 women were able to grow their small retail businesses and increase their incomes.

Lack of access to finance is universally regarded as one of the most significant constraints to economic development. Without affordable and appropriate capital, Northern Kenyan individuals and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are prevented from participating in the formal economy, capitalizing on business opportunities, investing in their livelihoods, and responding to shocks, such as natural disasters.

This blog was originally posted on Climatelinks as a collaboration during COP28.

This blogpost is one in a series of blogs sharing insights gained from the Market Systems Symposium 2023. The MSS blogpost provides a brief snapshot of key insights shared across a number of different sessions in MSS 2023 held in Cape Town between 13-15 November 2023.

The blog provides a summary of how MSR analysis can provide important insights into local contexts that should shape how activities are designed and implemented. The case of Haiti is of particular interest in that the various forces and factors affecting how smallholders manage risks from shocks and stresses have had a profound effect on how they engage market systems. As the authors explain, the MSR analysis provided insights into how smallholders manage a portfolio of animals to cope with such a dynamic and uncertain context.

Climate change has been a slow-moving risk for some time now, but what is often missed, which this blog points out, is that there are immediate consequences affecting most people around the world, especially the most vulnerable. As the blog highlights, increasing weather variability is a challenge for most smallholder farmers, including in Uganda. At the same time, the ability to effectively forecast weather has remained low, which creates a circumstance of increasing risks since erratic weather patterns mean farmers are often caught off guard damaging crops and reducing productivity.

If you’ve ever tried to evaluate the extent of system change, you know it’s a fascinating—but tricky—process.

Have you ever wanted to see where USAID provides funding, or what USAID invests in?

In the second blog in the series, the authors focus on the importance of using a retail distribution market systems lens to gain insights into the business realities of selling construction products and services to low-income customer segments. For example, low-income customers buy in smaller lots and often have important considerations related to decision-making, coping strategies, and trust that require specific business strategies and tactics. The blog examines a few examples from TCIS’s work in relation to how they applied systemic thinking related to retail distribution to improve housing outcomes for incremental builders.

This post was written by Habitat for Humanity's Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and was Originally Published on the Vikāra Institute's website.

This blog is written by Laura Kim and Michelle LeMeur of the Canopy Lab for the Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnership (MSP) Activity. How does one know if their studies have had any influence in the real world? With the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror (for many), we set out to answer this question following the dissemination of our 2021 and 2022 studies on the impact and implications of the pandemic on the global development workforce.

This post was written by Habitat for Humanity's Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and was originally published on the Vikāra Institute's website.

Start-ups and fast-growing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need financing to grow—and that financing must be affordable. Yet, the return on investment that finance providers, such as banks and investors, require (to cover their costs and risks) often exceeds what SMEs can afford.

How Feed the Future Business Drivers for Food Safety is building capacity for small- and medium-sized food businesses to be leaders in food loss solutions

Around the world, donors like USAID are focused on helping small businesses thrive. These businesses create the lion’s share of formal jobs in emerging markets, and they provide the goods and services local communities need. Still, many small businesses struggle to grow because they can’t access the financing they need. Enter transaction advisors: private sector firms that work with small businesses and investors, structuring and closing investment deals between them.