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Winning the war against Ebola requires a two-front battle

January 28, 2020 by Monica Amponsah

The deadly Ebola virus currently plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is spread by contact with the blood or body fluids of a person with the disease. It’s also spread by rumors and disinformation. 

That’s why, when designing its new program to protect its citizens from the outbreak in neighboring DRC, the government of the Republic of Rwanda knew it needed a two-pronged solution to take on both causes of disease proliferation. 

How can we strengthen women’s economic empowerment in Central America? With a $368K matching fund and wrap-around support

April 16, 2019 by Amelia Kuklewicz and Elliott Collins

Entrepreneurship is a vital part of life for women in Central America, where unemployment is 50 percent higher for women than for men. But women entrepreneurs are squeezed from many sides as they struggle to launch and grow their businesses.

Women’s Savings Groups for Better Reproductive Health in Bénin

The Grameen Foundation program, “Women’s Savings Groups for Better Reproductive Health in Bénin” advanced opportunities for rural women and their husbands to make choices about reproductive health that best fit their individual and family needs. It built on “Healthy Savings,” an earlier program by Freedom from Hunger (now part of Grameen Foundation). The Reproductive Health program worked with women’s savings groups to combine health savings with access to family planning education and linkages to health providers.  The program served 11,590 women in 516 savings groups. Gender Dialogues--facilitated conversations about family planning—engaged husbands and partners in discussion, leading to greater joint decision-making among women and men in planning families and choosing birth control.

An entrepreneur by any other name

March 15, 2019 by Mary Vail, MBA

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines entrepreneur as one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. As an entrepreneur, I can appreciate how others seek to find success in operating their own business. And I am often amazed at the challenges some must overcome to ensure their business thrives.

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Coffee, Cocoa, and the Cutting Edge

March 07, 2019

That morning ritual loved by millions, a simple cup of coffee, may one day be a thing of the past. New research shows that 60% of the world’s 124 species of wild coffee face a mounting threat of extinction, mostly as a result of deforestation. This potential loss of genetic diversity would, in turn, limit the ways in which coffee could be adapted to a changing climate and disease threats.

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Youth Champions for Digital Finance launches in rural India

Less than 10 percent of India’s 650,000 rural villages have a bank branch, and millions of the rural poor have yet to access formal financial services. To help bridge this gap, Youth Champions for Digital Finance will train people in poor, rural areas in digital financial literacy, increasing their knowledge, confidence and ability to successfully use financial services.

Health Financing and Access

Rural poor gentleman receives a much needed eye exam.For millions of people, a health crisis is also a financial crisis, plunging them more deeply in to poverty. We develop solutions that strengthen the access of women and families to health services, through health financing and education, and partnerships that breakthrough barriers to health in underserved communities.

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