Blog

This post was originally published on Helvetas' website and written by Chalachew Gebeyehu, SKY Project Manager, Helvetas; Bettina Jenny, Head of Skills Development & Education, Helvetas; and Sabrina Würmli, Advisor for Skills Development, Helvetas. 

(Second in a series of five blogs about the drivers of sustainability in USAID partnerships with the private sector based on the Enduring Results Study 3.0)

Worldwide, the private sector is playing an unprecedented role in shaping opportunities that improve the lives in the countries and communities that USAID supports. For six decades, USAID has partnered with the private sector to solve the world’s most complex development challenges and to help countries accelerate development progress. 

The global call for access to quality education for all by 2030 comes with a hefty price tag. To meet this target, we need $40 billion in additional funding every year for primary and secondary education alone. To begin closing this gap, new approaches to mobilizing more resources will be imperative, since development agencies and philanthropic organizations do not have the funds to fill the gap on their own.

In Somalia, USAID is helping blunt the economic impact of COVID-19 by supporting financial institutions and contributing to Somalis’ ability to cope with, and build resilience to, the COVID-19 crisis.

How can programs encourage and enable local commercial banks to lend to companies supplying solar home systems for off-grid customers? This post is part two in a three-part series, and addresses solar photovoltaic systems for commercial and industrial users and providers.

In many developing countries, the companies that build, supply, and sell clean energy solutions have difficulty obtaining bank loans or other financing to expand their businesses or reach new markets. This blog shares how Power Africa is working with the Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity to support off-grid energy companies in Rwanda.

USAID's Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment and Livelihoods project is responding to COVID-19 by employing a strategy across its value chains to mitigate the impact of distruped supply chains and damage to the private sector.

This post shares thoughts from Dr. Michael Kremer on an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Dr. Kremer directs USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures program and is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Power Africa teamed up with USAID INVEST to increase access to solar home systems and mini-grids across Kenya. Through Azuri Technology's pay-as-you-go-model, they are projected to provide 390,000 new connections and 6,000 upgraded connections across the country.

KATA Solar is one of a dozen Ghanaian companies offering rooftop solar. Sales of solar products in West Africa’s off-grid energy access market jumped by nearly one-third in the first half of 2017.

This post explores how USAID is mobilizing institutional investors to develop Africa's infrastructure through an initiative called MiDA, which connects American investors to the local partners.

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.

Village Enterprise works to end extreme poverty in rural Africa by providing groups of three entrepreneurs with seed capital, training, ongoing mentoring, and support for the formation of Business Savings Groups. This post highlights a $5.32m payment-for-results project in the form of a Development Impact Bond.

As Marketlinks examines Pay-for-Results this August, check out this blog from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) highlighting compact designed to reduce poverty through economic growth in Cabo-Verde.

In August, Marketlinks is focusing on the Pay-for-Results model in global development. This post from the World Bank blog highlights an upcoming project to incentivize dairy suppliers in Tanzania to deliver input bundles for smallholder dairy farmers.

Data protection is a primary focus of the humanitarian sector. In late 2016, USAID supported a digital cash transfer preparedness grant meant to help NGOs be equally well-prepared to offer (digital) cash as to offer other modalities of assistance (e.g. in-kind items).

This post highlights two youth dairy farmers through Feed the Future Kenya Investment Mechanism Program with the support of USAID Kenya.

This post offers recommendations on managing the shifts in culture, management and partnering needed when a project shifts from providing direct services to a facilitative market systems approach.

In Nigeria, a Pay-for-Results prize competition incents use of Aflasafe to combat aflatoxin contamination and drive demand for higher-quality maize.

Learning from an initiative to help private maternity homes in Ghana survive the departure of the primary midwife-owner.

Women lead approximately one-third of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets but remain disproportionately underserved. They often face less favorable terms for financing and limited access to essential resources needed to build, sustain, and grow their businesses.

Among the entrepreneurs supported by USAID's Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) Initiative, those businesses that were owned by women grew both revenues and jobs significantly faster.

How can implementers use blended finance to mobilize capital? Chemonics and LixCap share their experiences with sequencing and explore its potential.

Sat4Farming uses a digital farm development plan to provide cocoa farmers with detailed information on their farms, such as a profit and loss statement, and helps guide their investment decisions.