Livelihoods

William's windmill was built using pictures and diagrams. Photo: whiteafrican<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/622366993/sizes/m/in/photostream/"> (Flicker)</a>

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How a Malawi teen used junk to put wind to work

Technology doesn’t always come from experts with expensive equipment. William Kamkwamba’s junkyard windmill proves it.

An equity fund's investments in Armenian food processors could help thousands of small farmers find new markets for their goods. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rietje/2926152393/">Rita Willaert (Flickr)</a>

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How buying local may mean big returns for an Armenian equity fund

Could equity investment become the newest tool in the fight against poverty? Thanks to an innovative fund in Armenia, we may soon know the answer.

Protesters wave Egypt's flag. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/caitelle/5403613016/sizes/m/in/photostream/">C. Elle (flickr)</a>

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Turning Arab Spring youth opinions into data - and change

This story was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says green energy is central to economic growth. Photo: <a href="United Nations Information Service - Geneva">United Nations Information Service - Geneva(flickr)</a>

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U.N. on electricity: Green growth needs a good grid

What can the world’s poorest hope to achieve without energy access? Not much, according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Apps4Africa helps African farmers to be more productive in the face of climate change. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iicd/5348358125/sizes/m/in/photostream/">IICD (Flickr)</a>

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Made in Africa: Three mobile apps to fight climate crisis

As the Apps4Africa climate challenge announces its winners, African farmers and communities gain new market tools in tackling the everyday challenges of climate change. And who better to design these tools than Africans themselves?

Fostering agricultural growth will minimize the need for food aid. Photo:<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/breadfortheworld/6377989109/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Bread for the World (Flickr)</a>

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Aid & Subsidy Junction: What's Your Function?

The 2012 Farm Bill has reignited the food aid debate. If a few innovative policies can help alleviate hunger and trim the foreign aid budget, will governments bite?

Palestinian youth can now connect with job opportunities through texting. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/1970701330/sizes/m/in/photostream/>Photo: Steve Rhodes (flickr)</a>

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Roaming resumes connect Palestinian youth

In Palestine, new technology is helping new graduates find job opportunities. Souktel, an organization providing mobile phone services for developing countries, understands that swift texting could spell out gainful employment for many young adults.

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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.

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.

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From National Public Radio: Egypt's youth await a jobs revolution

Egypt today sounds a lot like Egypt before the revolution: high unemployment, corruption, poverty. And a whopping 35 percent unemployment rate for people under the age of 30.

Mercy Corps made cutting down trees for cooking fuel more sustainable through a reforestation project in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Photo: JGrant for Mercy Corps.

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Payment for protection: an innovative program boosts incomes and saves trees

A new program in Brazil is turning tragedy on its head by paying the poor to preserve their natural surroundings.

Village savings and loan schemes help the poor save in remote communities like this one in Malawi. Photo: Erik Mandell for MercyCorps

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New projects help the poor save as well as borrow

The world's poorest have long struggled to borrow. Now, an alternative microfinance model is also making it easier for poor people to save.

The departure of skilled workers in the developing world may, contrary to popular belief, do more good than harm. Photo:<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/73008420@N00/3662432706/sizes/m/in/photostream/">banoiff (flickr)</a>

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Reinterpreting the Brain Drain

When educated professionals depart a developing nation, does greater wealth arrive? Some scholars in the international development community are saying farewell to the notion that the ‘brain drain’ hinders impoverished countries from expanding human capital and increasing the growth rate.

A wax lined sleeping bag could save the lives of thousands of underweight infants born in the developing world. Photo:<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/branditressler/4522634814/sizes/m/in/photostream/">ladybugbkt (flickr)</a>

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An Incubator that Embraces the Fight Against Infant Mortality

In the developing world, many children’s lives end before they have a chance to begin. The developers of Embrace—a portable and cost-effective incubator—believe they have hatched a solution to infant mortality.