Health

An improved sanitation system allows private sanitation companies to access new customers in narrow urban slums, where some of the 94 million Indonesians live without access to such services. Photo: Mercy Corps

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Value Chains

Disruptive sanitation: Can 3-wheeled carts and better septic tanks clean up Jakarta?

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

The SODIS purification process works by placing bottles of warter in the sun for six hours. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartenstein/2193266521/sizes/m/in/photostream/">dominik.bartenstein (flickr)</a>

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In Tajikistan, promise and problems for solar disinfection

Purifying drinking water by putting it in plastic bottles on the roof in the sun sounds simple. But unless people understand how the process works and know when the water is ready to drink, they stay thirsty.

A child eats Plumpy'nut in Ethiopia. Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps.

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Franchised manufacturing: For social enterprises, an idea worth copying

How do you get poverty-fighting products to the furthest corners of the globe the way that Coca-Cola gets its products there? Use the same strategy, obviously.

Incorporating native plants could revitalize the agriculture, nutrition and economy of Malawi. Photo: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/7290577556/in/photostream/”>CIMMYT (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

The problem with Malawi's state-subsidized maize surplus: Nutrition

Malawi is fixated on maize, but Kristof and Stacia Nordin aim to change that. They say native crops would bring variety and abundance to the monotonous Malawian diet.

Jeffrey Garten explored the massive shifts taking place in the global economy with an audience at<a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/portland"> Mercy Corps' Action Center</a>. Photo: Kyla Springer/Mercy Corps.

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Yale economist to world: Don't panic. Embrace uncertainty and innovation.

Presented by Jeffrey Garten at Mercy Corps

The world is not ending, and the sky is not falling. But the rise of the global South and East promises to reward the world's most innovative risk-takers.

A "freeform fabricator" like this one can already manufacture pharmeceuticals from scratch. Could it make lifesaving drugs cheaper? <a href="http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v4/n5/full/nchem.1313.html#/supplementary-information">Photo: Nature.com.</a>

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Are machines about to let us all manufacture our own medicine?

Self-adjusting eyeglasses can already make us our own optometrists. 3-D printers might one day make us pharmacists, too.

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Expensive poo: The World Bank tells us how much poor sanitation costs

Caution: This video shows graphic images of feces.

OK, it may not be a free ride, but that might be just as well. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nightthree/321826517/in/photostream/">Justin Russell (Flickr)</a>

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Grants these days: Like asking your parents for a car

Funding self-sustaining poverty solutions means attaching strings. We all know it's for the best—but man, sometimes those funders can drive you crazy.

Wendell Pierce's new chain of grocery stores will bring fresh produce to New Orleans' food deserts. Image: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034361412@N01/558333048/">Rick (Flickr)</a>

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A new take on charity: TV star turns New Orleans grocer

Years after the disaster, people are still turning challenges into opportunities in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.

When people make money, health always seems to be one of their top priorities. Does that make it a good measure of prosperity itself? Photo: Photo: Jean-Pierre Dushime/Mercy Corps

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What if the best way to measure wealth is ... health?

Health isn't just an optional side benefit of prosperity, one expert argues. It might be the ideal way to measure whether wealth creation is working.

Eating well isn't only good for you, it's good for the economy, too. Photo: Edgar Putul/Mercy Corps Guatemala

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The world's cheapest path to wealth: Well-fed kids

In a time of global economic crisis, the world is exploring every possible hindrance to economic growth: debt, unemployment, inflation... malnutrition?

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Obama taps development expert to lead World Bank

Jim Yong Kim was announced today as Obama's pick for the next head of the World Bank. We take a quick look at his street cred to see how he stacks up:

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