Resource Library

This preliminary briefing note summarizes some of the key trends and insights from the 2015 Landscape of Microinsurance in Africa, the full report for which will be published in early 2016.

Systemic change is often talked about, but poorly understood. Join us as we explore how four Feed the Future projects in Sub-Saharan Africa contributed to changes in the systems in which they worked, across varying market enabling environments and using a range of programmatic approaches.

The USAID-funded mSTAR Bangladesh project aims to increase operational efficiency and productivity across USAID Bangladesh’s agricultural and health portfolios through mobile and electronic payment adoption.

mSTAR Bangladesh held its third quarterly workshop on June 12, 2014, focusing on the smart usage of mobile money and developing an enabling financial ecosystem. The workshop also discussed the future of mobile money in Bangladesh and the potentially huge impact it could have on increasing financial inclusion. The workshop was attended by 19 participants representing 9 organizations. See workshop report for full details.

Richard Kohl is a scaling expert currently assisting USAID Bureaus and Missions in thinking about how to scale technologies and innovations within the context of Feed the Future. Dr. Kohl is roughly half-way through a dozen planned country visits to Missions with Feed the Future investments to provide recommendations on scaling innovations, be they technologies or business models. His approach views market systems as platforms for shifting from scaling, as defined by more time and resources, to a more sustainable, population-scale approach. Dr.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing at more than twice the pace of any other region. Although the overall rate of population expansion has been gradually declining for decades, the absolute number of working-age people will grow by approximately 14 million next year alone (Lam and Leibbrandt 2013). By 2030, when children born this year reach their 16th birthdays, the corresponding labor pool will have grown by 21 million people annually.

The Tanzania Staples Value Chain Project – NAFAKA, implemented by ACDI/VOCA, is one of the 10 active Feed the Future projects in Tanzania. Chief of Party Lee Rosner discusses NAFAKA’s market-driven, value chain approach to addressing food security concerns in the country, sharing both the challenges and successes encountered during the project’s first year of implementation.