Blog

The Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security project is a buy-in mechanism where USAID Missions can rapidly secure top analysis and technical assistance to create an enabling environment for agricultural market systems.

Flooding is a constant threat in many parts of Bangladesh where people’s livelihoods depend on a good crop. Microinsurance was designed to help at-risk farmers to increase their resilience to this threat.

With support from the Cooperative Development Program (CDP), Equal Exchange set out to answer if small farmers are really too poor to invest. In 2010, the CDP and Equal Exchange began working together with six farmer organizations in Latin America building member investment and savings programs.

With the growing need to “do more with less” and demonstrate results when using development dollars, pay-for-results is a compelling solution — one which USAID and other donors will inevitably want to see more of.

The development-focused investment model that is evolving in South Africa reflects a new model that combines both community cooperative and business partner by means of joint ventures. Read on to learn how this model takes a business approach to development that attracts private investment.

Youth savings groups promote positive asset building and introduces girls, boys, young women and men to the elements of personal finance, entrepreneurship, and life skills. 

Agriculture is the main source of income for much of Kenya's population, yet, many smallholder farmers lack access to financial systems. WOCCU developed a toolkit to support farmers' financial needs in Guatemala, Mexico, and Kenya.

It will require an extra $2.5 trillion to achieve the SDGs. Can the development community find creative ways to fill that gap?

In this series, learn how cooperatives can help support local institutions, businesses, communities, and leaders to drive their own success.

In Liberia, a new mobile money provider has been onboarded to a mobile salary payment project, opening up the market to healthy competition.

Read how private sector-led technical and entrepreneurial trainings are playing an important role in boosting women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh.

Digital services — with their geographic reach, ease of use, and transparency — are driving financial inclusion and alleviating poverty. But are rural women being left behind?

Explore three ways mobile money adoption can be improved.

Learn how mobile technology is revolutionizing financial diaries data collection.

Read up on approaches to financial inclusion for women facing intimate partner violence.

Understanding how markets shape and are shaped by the broader system in which they are embedded is critical for making them work better for food-insecure families and poor farmers.

Read up on why the population explosion is one of the key reasons why we have to look beyond just farming as the primary pathway out of poverty for today and tomorrow’s youth.

This post is the second of a two-part blog series showcasing a Q&A session with Christy Sisko on the revenue capital approach and its revolutionary effect on the small and medium enterprise (SME) financing world.

In this Q&A with Chemonics' Christy Sisko, learn how the revenue capital approach is providing critical financing opportunities for SMEs at important growth stages.

Explore USAID's recently released interactive online resource to complement The Guide to the Use of Digital Financial Services in Agriculture!

Learn how mobile money has impacted the agricultural sector in northern Ghana.

Learn how Feed the Future Malawi Mobile Money Project takes a strategic approach to building mobile money networks through building capacity for service providers, banks, and regulators.

By offering a secure way to store money and access financial services, mobile money has the potential to increase the efficiency of programs and significantly improve the resilience of smallholder farmers in Bangladesh.

Practitioners from ACDI/VOCA, Impact LLC and MarketShare Associates discussed findings on the diffusion of innovations within market systems in several programs. Part 2 of 2.

Practitioners discuss findings around the diffusion of innovations within market systems in the Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program, the Senegal Nataal Mbay program, the Zambia PROFIT PLUS program and the Ghana ADVANCE II program.