Uganda

Encouraging youth to pursue farming may be the answer to both unemployment issues and fading crop yields. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gatesfoundation/5075935331/in/photostream/">Gates Foundation (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Rural youth seek greener pastures in the city, but farming could get hot

Even on the farm, it pays to be young, but every year, young people are "escaping" their hometown rural communities to seek the "greener pastures" of city life. Meanwhile, global buyers of commodities such as coffee and cocoa beans worry about the aging farming workforce.

Solar Sister entrepreneurs earn commissions for the sale of solar energy products to people who need them. Photo: <a href="http://www.solarsister.org/">Solar Sister</a>

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Sustainable Energy

Solar Sister: Lighting up livelihoods from one sister to another

A recent CNN article explains how one group in east Africa aims to help women create economic opportunities and eradicate energy poverty at the same time through commission-based sales of solar products

Maendeleo installing solar panels on Uganda's libraries. Photo: EIFL

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Sustainable Energy

Solar panels meet Android tablets in Uganda, and farmers win

Basking on the equator, Uganda catches plenty of rays. A library database and solar power project is using them to connect rural farmers.

Inside SELCO's magical school bus.

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Mobile, solar schools literally bring power to the powerless

Beep beep! For some students, hopping on the school bus is hopping into the classroom. Four communities are using solar-powered mobile classrooms to overcome inaccessibility to the power grid.

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.

In Uganda, dairy farmers are on the hunt for affordable energy sources. One might be their own cows. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59367690@N00/4157487541/">Neiljs (flickr)</a>

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A dung-powered milk chiller could power profit at small dairies

Warm milk spoils—and millions of the world's energy-poor rural farmers have no way to keep it cool.

If only the bovine digestive system also produced some sort of vast and seemingly endless flow of energy-rich sludge.

The ReadySet charging kit includes a velo bicycle generator as well as a solar panel. Photo: Fenix.

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‘Trickle-up innovation’: A solar charger for the poor helps the rich, and vice versa

A pair of entrepreneurs who set out to design a solar charger for electricity-starved Ugandans has unexpectedly created a product popular with American consumers.

Photo: F. Coupet for Mercy Corps

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The mobile phone is the bank of choice in Africa

A new Gallup Poll from Sub-Saharan Africa shows that the mobile phone is the most popular way to transfer money in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof faces criticism that his coverage of war, poverty and violence is detrimental for Africa. Photo:Henry McInnes/Sunday Mail for Mercy Corps

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Twitter debate questions media’s impact on Africa’s prosperity

Bad roads and infrequent bus service is just one bump in the road to bringing solar to rural Uganda. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps.

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Challenges to lighting a pathway for solar in Uganda

This article is the third in a three-part series exploring the role Mercy Corps played in bringing solar power to rural Uganda.

<a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/photoessay/landownershipyieldsstrongerhealthiercommunities">View the full Guatemala photo essay. By Jamie Grant for Mercy Corps.</a>

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More than an argument, land conflicts stall economic growth

As battles over land rights increase and intensify, development stalls.

Improving fruit production and quality can provide opportunity for both farmers and corporations Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/angela7/381998091/sizes/m/in/photostream/"> angela7dreams(Flickr)</a>

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Gates CEO to corporations: Nonprofits can help you spur business and fight poverty at the same time

Jeff Raikes thinks private businesses have a lot to offer the world of global development, but sometimes they need a little help from their friends.

Shop owners who attended the Barefoot Power trainings were better able to market the products to interested customers. Photo: Kim Beevers/Mercy Corps.

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Lighting a pathway for solar in rural Uganda

This article is the second in a three-part series exploring the role Mercy Corps played in bringing solar power to rural Uganda.

Pader District is part of Uganda's northern region, where farming is the main livelihood and source of income. Photo: Thatcher Cook/Mercy Corps.

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PHASE ONE: Lighting a pathway for solar in rural Uganda

Phase One: The critical first step involves information, information, information.

Solar panels in Uganda. Photo: Jenny Vaughn/Mercy Corps.

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INTRO: Lighting a pathway for solar in rural Uganda

In this three-part series, we explore the role an international aid nonprofit played in convincing urban solar companies to sell their products to poor, rural farmers, and convincing poor, rural farmers to reallocate their kerosene budget to solar.

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