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Why ‘Cheaper’ Projects Boost Farmer Profits: USAID finds small sums can generate big returns in South Sudan
To examine the effects of USAID’s assistance in South Sudan’s agriculture sector since 2012, a team completed a cost-benefit analysis of the $26 million in USAID funds being spent annually there in support of the Feed the Future Initiative. Part of the analysis examined two different techniques for improving crop yields.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Matt Damon Tries to Get Clean Water and Toilets for India’s Poor
Matt Damon finds it a challenge to get people to care about water. It’s why he was in India from Aug. 23 to 26 on a four-day tour. Not to promote his latest film Elysium, a sci-fi dystopia with a socialist underpinning, but to help the rural and urban poor in India get access to clean water and sanitation by investing in tube wells, hand pumps and toilets with proper drainage facilities.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- microfinance
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Good Ideas Meet Elbow Grease: Evidence Action committed to taking evidence-based programs and services to large scale
Evidence Action begins from the premise that achieving scale across sectors and contexts is a solvable challenge, and that it can lead to gains in expertise and experience. The private sector has demonstrated this to be the case.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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NexThought Monday – Back to the Future: Why micromilling could make a juicy impact investment
Solutions and innovation won’t come from established sources. It will take new models and entrants that will shift the agriculture sector. A new wave of entrepreneurial innovation needs to grip the food value chain as it has the technology sector.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Tags
- impact investing
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How Meals at School Help the Kyrgyzstan Economy: 12 years after launching Food For Education, Mercy Corps looks back
The reality is that a school meal may be the only meal a child receives in a day, and it can make the difference between future success and a lifelong struggle with poverty.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Tags
- nutrition
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Incubating Aquaculture Businesses at the Base of the Pyramid
Successful projects, dwindling funds. What’s an innovative NGO to do?One answer: Build a deal pipeline for impact investors looking for investable ventures.WorldFish, a Malaysia-based spinoff of the the “green revolution” pioneer CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), reached this crossroads in 2010.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
- Tags
- impact investing
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NexThought Monday – Want to Help a Bolivian Farmer?: Eat their quinoa
Andean farmers have enjoyed an economic bonanza from growing quinoa, a superfood beloved by foodies and vegetarians in the West. But the farmers’ success may prove their undoing, as farmers in the United States and Canada have begun growing the grain.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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SC Johnson and Partners Help Rwanda Pyrethrum Farmers Boost Incomes, Build Sustainable Supply
SC Johnson, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture announced the Rwanda Pyrethrum Program, a Global Development Alliance (GDA) public-private partnership designed to help Rwanda pyrethrum farmers boost incomes while creating an environmentally and economically sustainable raw materials source. The three-year extension of the initial 28-month program focuses on increasing both production and quality of pyrethrum and on strengthening and expanding the capacity of the cooperative organizations that the farmers rely on to market their crops.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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