Ethiopia

Kids teach themselves the alphabet using tablets. Photo: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/2884605787/in/set-72157608680464156”> One Laptop per Child (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

The power of play: Touchscreen apps teach kids their letters

Give a kid a tablet and they’ll teach themselves to read.

Two actors in the a new video that satirizes assumptions that Africans are destitute. (Video still by Africa for Norway.)

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Save a Norwegian child today! Mail her your radiator

Sure, hunger is bad. But frostbite kills too. Africa for Norway aims to help freezing Norwegians survive the winter, one radiator at a time.

Heinz sells 80 percent of British beans. That may be exactly why they passed on a chance to do so in a more innovative way. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vek/4226781275/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Kevin Spencer (flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Why the biggest brand sometimes isn't the best innovation partner

A new case study of the Ethiopian bean industry includes a depressing anecdote reminding us that innovation rarely starts at the top of the market.

Addis Ababa-based entrepreneur Bethlehem Tilahun at the World Economic Forum in May 2012. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/7169657482/sizes/z/in/photostream/">World Economic Forum (Flickr)</a>

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Quotable: 'People don't want to be not poor'

Bethlehem Tilahun, Ethiopian entrepreneur and founder of SoleRebels Footwear, in the New York Times:

“As I entered college ... it had become clear to me that ‘poverty alleviation’ is a myth.”

A Malawian farmer in her groundnut plot. Photo: <ahref:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44760652@N05/7337617292/">CIMMYT (Flickr)</a>.

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Value Chains

Farm growth fights poverty twice as fast as other growth

The most equitable way a country can stimulate a post-conflict economy is to invest in agriculture, an African nonprofit says.

The SolarKiosk in an Ethipoian village provides electricity, products, and commerce for the community. Photo: <a href="http://www.solarkiosk.eu/?p=373"> SolarKiosk</a>

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SolarKiosk rolls self-powered electricity stores into Ethiopia

A mobile, modular kiosk is bringing solar power and products to off-the-grid communities in Ethiopia, and creating a business hub in the process.

A new mapping tool ties climate change to humanitarian issues including conflict and displacement in countries like Somalia. Photo: <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/topics/displacement">Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps</a>

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Maps to the rescue: New tool shows climate-driven clashes across Africa

The U.S. military is targeting an unorthodox foe in the battle for political stability in Africa: climate change.

The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange helps farmers know what their crops are worth, and earn a fair price. Photo by Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

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Ethiopia's Commodity Exchange fights hunger through fair prices

"If more and better information within agricultural markets can make uncertainty recede like darkness in front of a candle, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange is a bank of high-powered floodlights," writes Tate Watkins in GOOD magazine.

<a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/awomansworth/education/ethiopia/education-for-ethiopias-young-women">Visit Joni Kabana's Mercy Corps photo gallery.</a>

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How do you keep a girl in school? Pay mom to send her

In Ethiopia, Mercy Corps is empowering two generations of women at once by paying mothers to keep their daughters in school.

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19 Ways We Innovate

Reporting in collaboration with Yadira Gutierrez.

More than 800 staff members in 47 countries cast a vote for their favorite innovation. Which is your favorite?

A simple solution makes a big impact for Ethiopia's farming families. Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

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19 Ways We Innovate: Winners Announced

And the winner of Mercy Corps’ internal innovations competition is...(drumroll, please)... Ethiopia! Despite—or very well perhaps because—of the massive drought that's hit the Horn of Africa, community members and Mercy Corps staff have hit on a solution that's both simple and cheap.

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Need answers? The Question Box helps people Google can't reach

Video courtesy Question Box.

An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickz/2113212191/">rickz (Flickr)</a>

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Diffusing a carbon bomb: tapping Canadian tar sands would hit Africa’s poor hardest

Earth to Big Oil: On a global scale, The Keystone XL pipeline would probably kill more jobs than it creates.

Women in Kenya drag jerry cans of water 4 kilometers through a parched landscape. Photo by Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

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The East Africa drought: forecasting for humanitarian aid

How bad is the drought and famine in East Africa? Climate scientist Simon Mason elaborates in this video interview.

57 million women give birth each year without the help of a trained professional. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7203470@N03/2366525625/">hugrakka(Flicker)</a>

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Birth kits: An immediate solution to lowering maternal deaths

Bringing one life into the world shouldn't mean sacrificing another. While the developing world scrambles to secure funding for midwifery services, there's a cheap, short-term solution: birth kits.