Blog

How do you rise to the challenge of extending equitable economic opportunities to more than 600,000 women and men in Northeastern Nigeria ?

The blog is authored by John Rachkara, Deputy Chief of Party, Rural Resilience Activity.

This blog is jointly authored by Christiana Stephen Wakawa, Senior Intervention Lead – Microenterprises Support of the Rural Resilience Activity, and John Rachkara, Deputy Chief of Party of the Rural Resilience Activity.

This blog is jointly authored by Wilson Wakawa, Intervention Lead – Livestock Productivity of the Rural Resilience Activity, Nurein Abdulafattah Shittu, Advisor, Peace and Conflict at the Rural Resilience Activity and John Rachkara, Deputy Chief of Party of the Rural Resilience Activity.

This blog is jointly authored by Dongnaan Swomen, Intervention Lead, Agri Insurance of the Rural Resilience Activity, Mark Akpan, Senior Advisor, Financial Services of the Rural Resilience Activity, and John Rachkara, Deputy Chief of Party, Rural Resilience Activity.

This blog is authored by John Rachkara, Deputy Chief of Party of the Rural Resilience Activity, John Daudu Ebile, Senior MIS/T4D Officer of the Rural Resilience Activity.

This post was written by Jonah Belser for USAID’s Trade and Competitiveness Activity (TCA). Communities located in border regions are economically significant across the developing world. Border businesses provide vital products and services to people in transit—from international traders to migrant families—especially where cross-border trade and travel procedures are slow-moving and inefficient. These businesses range from customs brokerage and currency exchange services to local restaurants, hotels, markets, and more.

This is the second installment of The Market Corner's series on applying a systems approach to e-businesses, which unpacks key lessons from the private sector side of e-business to help inform market systems development interventions. Read the first post here.

FROM SILICON VALLEY STARTUP TO LANDMARK ACQUISITION Access to technology is an essential component to development, especially in Africa. Africans use cheap mobile phones to pay their bills, conduct small business, and make calls anywhere and everywhere. However, even a small mobile phone is not useful if power is not available to charge it. Eighty percent of African households lack electric power, which limits opportunities to access information and mobile money, as well as business and educational opportunities. 

By Emily Langhorne, INVEST Communications Specialist  

This post was originally posted on CARE's website here.

Companies across Africa are using digital technologies to solve health care challenges. American investment can help them improve their products and reach larger customer bases. With USAID assistance in support of Prosper Africa, Field Intelligence — a U.S.-led, Nigerian-based healthcare technology enterprise focused on strengthening the pharmacy supply chain in Nigeria and Kenya —closed its first round of fundraising. This financing will support the scaling-up of company’s Shelf Life service, which helps local pharmacies manage their inventory and avoid stockouts.

In our recent webinar discussing the findings from the Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) landscape analysis and case studies on women and youth inclusion in agricultural market systems, we were joined by RisiAlbania and ELAN RDC, two of the activities featured in the case studies. 

Learn how USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures grantees are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

In this post, read about how Feed the Future's Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) Prize selected Reel Fruit to receive acceleration services. ReelFruit is dried fruit and nuts packaging and distribution business in Nigeria.

As we prioritize making market systems more competitive, resilient, and inclusive for smallholder farmers and other market actors, we must connect our support for these actors with support for the all-encompassing yet elusive enabling environment around them.

An innovative approach to developing a sustainable seed system in cassava that simultaneously incentivizes all the stakeholders across the value chain is being implemented in Nigeria.

About 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, more than twice the worldwide rate, according to World Bank data.