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Women globally are 17% less likely to own a smartphone than men and even with mobile technology in a household, women are less likely to have the skills or confidence to use a mobile device and are less likely to have control over when and how they use it. These barriers are particularly acute for members of Village Savings & Loan Associations (VSLAs) who tend to be from the lowest income communities. For VSLA members, access to and usage of digital technology is limited due to cost, but also discriminatory gender norms that limit women’s ability to acquire basic digital skills and access to and use of technology. To address women’s digital exclusion, CARE developed a multi-pronged approach to delivering digital tools and skills to VSLA members, including enabling access to devices and addressing discriminatory norms. Two pilots commenced in September 2022, with 50 groups in Uganda and 50 groups in Rwanda. Through these pilots, CARE has conducted extensive research and is addressing social norms; facilitating access to devices; and delivering digital training.

Communities expressed diverse interests regarding how they wanted to receive assistance. Some community members said they were happy receiving aid in the form of vouchers while others wanted cash. What was interesting was that the underlying reason was the same–convenience and choice–but what was convenient for some members who were closer to stores was not as convenient for the others who were more remote.

The final blog in this series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations demonstrates why going beyond financial support is essential to provide partners with the coaching, networking, and advocacy needed to succeed in particularly complex, fragile and conflict-affected environments. It draws on the experience of the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

This blog, the third in a series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity's experience vetting private-sector actors as potential development partners in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where a paucity of enterprise data, low standards for company operations, and an absence of familiar business norms make it difficult to apply a typical approach to partner prospecting.

This blog, the second in a series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on managing private-sector actors who are problematically invested in maintaining a fragile, humanitarian-dependent socioeconomic system dominated by conflict. It describes the strategy of the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity for selecting partners and co-creating activities with communities in a conflict-sensitive way in the eastern DRC and explores the team's discomfort with some aspects of the 'bad actor' paradigm.

This blog, the first in a series inspired by the four take-away lessons from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on adding social inclusion and conflict sensitivity as a third dimension to shared value in the partnerships of the USAID Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

An increasing body of evidence shows the importance of addressing social norms as an essential component of women’s economic power.

Growing evidence suggests that companies which increase women’s equitable participation experience overall business growth, stronger financial performance, and increased productivity. According to the evidence, these companies can attract the best talent, focus on innovation, and gain access to new and changing markets. To create a detailed review of what evidence currently exists, this study looks at policies, practices, and programs for increasing women’s equitable participation. 

An increasing body of evidence shows the critical importance of addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in the world of work as an essential component of women’s economic empowerment (WEE). GBV contributes to poverty, magnifies the gender gaps in labor force participation and pay, and affects advancement opportunities.

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

In the dynamic landscape of international development, the intersection of market systems development (MSD) and conflict presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities. Several conversations on Day 1 at the Market Systems Symposium 2023 centered around MSD and conflict, drawing on experiences from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.

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?

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.

What does protecting watersheds have to do with the coffee market system? Surprisingly, a lot! Since 2014, Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) Blue Harvest Program has worked with local partners in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua to restore water resources and transform coffee livelihoods. The mountainous, coffee-producing areas of Central America provide drinking water for millions of people. As land degradation and climate change threaten coffee production and contribute to growing water scarcity, the link between the coffee market system and natural resource management has never been more important.

Is it possible to reintroduce a crop with a compelling global value in a nation with substantial land degradation and little institutional crop memory? Yes, it’s possible. But only with a strategic approach to market systems development (MSD). With local partners CLUSA El Salvador, Acugolfo and Caritas, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been working since 2014 to resuscitate El Salvador’s cacao sector through the Alianza Cacao project. Alianza Cacao aims to turn El Salvador into a key exporter and place of origin for high-quality, aromatic, fine-flavor cacao by stimulating production of an estimated 4,500 metric tons of Salvadoran cacao worth approximately $20,000,000 over the life of the project.

Northern Kenya has significant opportunities for economic development, and access to finance is a key driver for the region’s sustainable growth. Unfortunately, the region is also burdened with negative perceptions, as Kenyan financial institutions deem it risky compared to other more economically developed parts of the country. Further, most plentiful and impactful Northern Kenyan investments are at the micro, small- and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) level.

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 post was authored by Alexandra Klass of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). We know the power of the Graduation Approach and its impressive results that lift the ultra-poor out of poverty, but can it also be successful for people living in humanitarian crises and displacement?

This post was authored by William Martin of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), Laura Meissner of USAID BHA and the University of Arizona, and Melanie Mason of USAID BHA.

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 blog, written by Nika Larian, was originally posted on Agrilinks.

A nation’s ability to mobilize resources to combat and cope with climate change is primarily constrained by its resources and financial capacity, which vary dramatically across developing contexts.  While external sources of funding like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) are critical to meeting a nation’s Paris Agreement goals, they are often out of reach without domestic financial systems and processes to absorb such funds and use them productively.