humanitarian aid

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Value Chains

How big money is fighting HIV and malaria in Uganda

Impact investors wondering where the big money is should look no farther than Quality Chemical Industries, whose multi-million dollar headquarters produces low-cost antiretroviral drugs while spurring local manufacturing.

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Mobile Technology

No app for that: Why tech won’t solve global poverty as intended

Social entrepreneurs have trumpeted apps and technology as the knockout blow to poverty, but they may not provide the punch needed to make a lasting impact.

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Value Chains

Obama's new fix-Africa-toolbox includes one shiny new tool: private investment

President Obama wants America’s relationship with Africa to move beyond aid. The private sector would play a big part in the new partnerships.

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Value Chains

Medicines hitchhike with Coca Cola to save lives

British nonprofit Colalife knows how to enjoy a Coke--its medicine gets to rural Zambians in Coke crates--but even medical supplies need local flavor to be successful.

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Sustainable Energy

India's energy sector gets a $100 million boost and a nudge from U.S. Secretary of State

India, the fourth-largest consumer of energy worldwide, is showing the rest of the world how to eradicate energy poverty by looking skyward towards the sun.

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Value Chains

Brother or bully: Leaders squabble over role of big business in alleviating global hunger

The G8’s goal to increase private sector investment in Africa could offer new solutions to global hunger or it could be the new face of a failed solution.

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Social Enterprise

Quotable: Microinsurance penetration set to double by 2020

By 2020, over 1 billion people in poor countries will be covered under microinsurance.

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Value Chains

Natural disasters cost corporations $400 billion in 2011, UN says

Environmental disasters not only cripple smallholder farmers, they also mean high costs for the corporations at the buying end of the supply chain. A forthcoming UN report will show just how detrimental those costs can be.

Vilseskogen (flickr)"/>

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Social Enterprise

As aid to Haiti slows, a private co-op scores loans and turns heads

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

Like this farmer in Kenya, the challenge in Tanzania is connecting smallholder farmers to larger markets. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/5366702717/sizes/z/">CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture</a>

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Value Chains

How a Tanzania NGO scrapped grants to build markets that last

When it comes to solving poverty, sometimes the best way to get more done is to move out of the driver's seat.

Kenyan smallholder farmers. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38476503@N08/5367334314/">Photo: CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture (flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Four ways to make contract farming work for the very poor

Will contract farming, done right, serve as the missing link between small farmers and markets?

Vegetables at Market <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bioversity/6672475021/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Bioversity International (Flickr)</a>.

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Social Enterprise

You can't solve poverty by supplying products not in demand

Are humanitarian aid groups really demand-driven? Development economist James Riordan, says NGOs, government agencies and consulting firms, overwhelmingly, are not.

The structure of foreign aid is about to change. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/60881556@N05/5566653522/">Doctorwonder (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Dear traditional development assistance: The end is near

In a speech last week at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reminded development practitioners, politicos and philanthropists that their ultimate goal is to put themselves out of business.