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Browse recent blogs of interest to the Marketlinks community. Use the search box or the filters on the left-hand side to refine the listing of blogs by keyword, topic, and/or region/country.

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This February, Marketlinks explores some key considerations for promoting local and regional manufacturing of health products

Stockouts and shortages of quality-assured medical products — including those required to prevent maternal and child deaths, and combat and control infectious disease threats — are still common in many countries despite being critical for saving lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted global health supply chain vulnerabilities, including an overreliance on a small number of suppliers for key active pharmaceutical ingredients, as well as on a large concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Asia.

WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Strategy 3 — Cultivating Women’s Confidence

Author(s):

Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub
This blog is part of the WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Introducing Strategies for Closing the Gender Digital Divide. USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge (WCC) is a global call for solutions to improve women’s participation in everyday life by meaningfully changing the ways women access and use technology.

The Market Corner: Towards Greater Equity and Inclusion in Supply Chains

Author(s):

Marketlinks Team
This post was written by Holly Lard Krueger. This month on the Market Corner, I find common ground with two human rights advocates from completely different international development fields by exploring issues of equity and inclusion in supply chains and the application of systems thinking.

Women to Lean On: Financing For Women, By Women

Biljana Stanisavljva started her small business in Serbia in 2011, growing wheat and corn as a smallholder farmer. She wants to grow her business, but like many agricultural entrepreneurs, she finds it very challenging to obtain funds for her expansion plans. And as a woman, she faces additional challenges. Even after a decade as a registered business owner, she still has to rely on her husband for most business decisions. 

The Market Corner: Working at the Nexus of Health and the Environment

Author(s):

Marketlinks Team
For the second installment of the Market Corner blog series, Holly Lard Krueger speaks with sustainable development expert and primary care clinician Liz Willetts about the interconnectedness of our health and environmental systems, the voice missing from global policy decision-making tables, and the true cost of that lack of representation. Access February’s first installment here.

Opening doors for Honduran youth: supporting new agribusiness ventures

Author(s):

Corus International
Climate change and food insecurity are severely impacting rural livelihoods in Honduras and increasing rates of migration out of the country. With more than 28% of youth not in education, employment or training, too many Honduran young women and men face dismal economic prospects. Lutheran World Relief is committed to building the next generation’s hope for a stable and prosperous life within Honduras. 

WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Strategy 5 — Developing Community Support

Author(s):

Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub
This blog is part of the WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Introducing Strategies for Closing the Gender Digital Divide. USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge (WCC) is a global call for solutions to improve women’s participation in everyday life by meaningfully changing the ways women access and use technology.

Optimally Financing Medical Products to Ensure Affordable, Equitable Access

The affordability of safe and effective medicines is a critical determinant of equitable access. The share of total health expenditures on pharmaceutical products is extremely variable in the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranging from 6% (Denmark) to 34% (Bulgaria). However, obtaining accurate information about the affordability of medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is often complex and challenging, and the information remains incomplete.

Enhancing Government Effectiveness - DIBs, a Valuable Tool for a Much Broader Agenda

By Avnish Gungadurdoss and Ben Stephens Development Impact Bonds have an emerging record of improving impact by enabling results-oriented delivery, even in the most difficult circumstances. However, to drive sustained impact at transformative scale, we must migrate the results-oriented practices of DIBs to the heart of development spending by aid-agencies and governments alike.

Cooperative Mentors: Serving Beef Farmers in South Africa by Unlocking Markets

Author(s):

Kendra Spier
During the height of the COVID lockdown, beef farmers in South Africa working with the GENEX Cooperative Development Program (CDP) were faced with the complete shutdown of cattle auction sites due to COVID travel restrictions Which meant farmers were not able to sell their product on time. They were losing revenue and they were incurring extra expenses to feed cattle they earmarked for sale. At that moment, CDP mentors saw an opportunity.