By freely sharing what we learn, we have built a reputation as thought leaders who translate ideas into action and action into results. You can browse through recently published articles from all our publications ( Checkpoint, Developments, Developing Alternatives, [email protected] ) below—or visit individual publication sites for a full archive.
Developments
Chris LeGrand is the President of DAI Global Health. His new book, The Complete Business Leader, published in August, lays out a framework for business leadership, drawing on 30 years of experience in health, development, and technology consulting. LeGrand guides the reader through seven dimensions of leadership—individual wisdom, relationship m…
Read MoreDigital
When I first began learning about digital development, I thought of it as a new frontier that could push international development out of its modus operandi. New digital tools could provide individuals, communities, governments, and organizations with new sources of information at rapid speeds—enabling new means of collaboration to propel develo…
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We live in exciting times. The ways in which we store and engage with health data have been transformed with the creation and adoption of digital health technology. Whether it’s using a Fitbit, accessing your vaccine records online, or virtually connecting with your doctor, understanding your health status in real time has never been easier… for…
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“Where shall I begin,” asked the White Rabbit. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”—from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland We often hear the same question when it comes to gender-lens or gender-smart investing. Businesses and investors have varying levels of knowle…
Read MoreDeveloping Alternatives
The promise of land rights in developing countries goes something like this: Once an individual has secured land and property rights, he or she is more empowered and more able to participate in the economic growth of his or her community. Add in the multiplier effect and voila—a developing country begins to move toward economic growth and stabil…
Read MoreDigital
Access the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s new Guide to Creating Digital ID for Inclusive Development. Identity is deeply personal. Issues of identity are complex and tied up with power, privacy, and protection. Yet identifying constituents is often critical to organizing and managing global development projects. Decades of d…
Read MoreDigital
Read this blog in Ukrainian. When you walk into a room full of government officials, civil society organizations, and private companies discussing cybersecurity, you expect to hear disagreement. The exact opposite happened during the recent DAI- SocialBoost Cybersecurity Roundtable and Workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine. The event started with a panel di…
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Read this blog in English. Cупротив та неузгодженість — напевне, той асоціативний ряд, який спадає на думку, коли уявляємо, що в одній кімнаті мають зустрітися державні управлінці, громадський сектор та представники бізнесу для обговорення тонкощів кібербезпеки. Проте, на Cyber Security Day - серії подій, які команда SocialBoost нещодавно органі…
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Four people died in the recent heat wave in the Washington, D.C., area, and 4,600 people lost power. The combination suggests that access to electricity and air conditioning (AC) will not allow us to avoid the consequences of global warming. Climate change will result in higher peak temperatures and an increased number of days over 100 degrees.
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Drought and conflict in recent decades sent Afghanistan’s wheat production into sharp decline. Irrigation systems and farm equipment fell into disrepair and farmers were forced to abandon their land. In a country where bread is a substantive part of the rural diet, the decline of its fundamental farm crop resulted in lost livelihoods and stabili…
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Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, a global scourge where people are illegally traded for exploitation and commercial gain. Globally, more than $150 billion is generated from forced economic exploitation of people for commercial sex, domestic work, or other economic activities. In July 2018, the Global Slavery Index reported that…
Read MoreDigital
Let me introduce you to Latifa Yari, a 24-year-old student who will graduate from the Niger Higher School of Telecommunications (E.S.T.) this year with a degree in computer science. In 2018, Latifa won the Miss Geek Africa* competition with an app called Saro (“security” in Hausa) that connects emergency response services to citizens who have be…
Read MoreDigital
When Facebook announced its first foray into the digital financial space with its new digital currency Libra last month, the digital development community collectively sighed and Twitter lit up with both praise and concern. While it’s easy to get out the pitchforks for something like this—and in many ways rational, given how Facebook was manipul…
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In rural Ethiopia, land represents dignity and identity. More concretely, holding a certified land title means better prospects for economic independence, stable income, and bargaining power. When it comes to receiving legal recognition as landholders, women and members of other vulnerable, systemically disenfranchised groups have the most to ga…
Read MoreDigital
Esta entrada también está disponible en Español. The digital ecosystem in Latin America is pushing countries to accelerate public-private collaboration on digital transformation. At the recent GSMA Mobile 360 LATAM conference, we heard a lot about how 5G networks will bring about a technological, economic, and social revolution around the world….
Read MoreDigital
As a product development team, we spend a lot of time listening to the needs of users, particularly when it comes to their desire to collect and analyze data. And while projects have unique needs, they often ask for a common set of technology solutions. These include the ability to:
Digitally collect and manage data - offline or online as mobi…
Read MoreDigital
This blog is also available in English. El ecosistema digital en la región de América Latina está presionando a los países para acelerar la colaboración público-privada en la transformación digital. En la conferencia Mobile 360 LATAM de GSMA, escuchamos constantemente cómo se espera que las redes 5G traigan una revolución tecnológica, económica …
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently hosted a convening between two sets of challenge prize winners: Feed the Future’s, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Fall Armyworm Tech Prize finalists and the Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE)’s Tools and Technologies for Broad-Scale Pest and Disease Surveillance of…
Read MoreDevelopments
The first risk-sharing finance facility under the €3.7 billion European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD) recently opened in Jordan, marking a milestone in the European Union (EU)’s plan to spark investment in some of the world’s most investment-starved markets.
Read MoreDigital
Any ID—whether state-issued or purpose-made for services such as cash transfers—in some way reflects levels of equality, whether these are inherent in the technology or prevalent in the social ecosystem. For instance, research from the GSM Association (GSMA) in Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Rwanda showed that citizens feel that equality in national I…
Read MoreDigital
You saw it coming. You’ve been collecting geospatial data on your projects for years. Maybe uploading it to a faraway server or sharing it with local partners…or stashing it away on your laptop or external hard drive. But no one else was ever able to use it. And you were sort of irritated that you had to ask a million people for the same data ev…
Read MoreDevelopments
Tanzania’s population of 60 million is projected to double by 2050. As with many low-income countries, Tanzania’s livelihoods and food supply largely depend on livestock and rain-fed agriculture and fisheries. The climate supporting these conditions is projected to change through the 2050s with warmer temperatures, longer droughts and heat waves…
Read MoreDigital
Since 2016, [email protected] has kept its readers updated on the latest from the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) in Ghana, from young entrepreneurs’ agritech product concepts to international awards it has received. In the three years since the KIC’s launch, funders of all sorts—from bilateral donors to corporate social investors—have embraced the pot…
Read MoreDigital
Esta entrada también está disponible en español. Coffee rust has menaced the global coffee industry for more than a century, but particularly in the era of climate change. Nevertheless, effective, coordinated action between coffee producing countries across Central America has remained elusive, and as a result the disease has spread—to devastati…
Read MoreDigital
This post is also available in English. Durante más de un siglo, la roya ha representado una seria amenaza para la industria cafetalera mundial, especialmente en la era del cambio climático. No obstante, la toma de acciones eficaces y de forma coordinada entre los países centroamericanos productores de café ha sido una tarea difícil de lograr. E…
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Communities in Guatemala’s Western Highlands have struggled for decades under persistent exclusion. This exclusion has limited local governments’ capacity to serve residents and caused over-reliance on central government funds. Many of this region’s 2.3 million residents have lacked for food security and public services such as water and sanitat…
Read MoreDigital
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers seven definitions of “scale,” involving variously weight, fish, climbing, maps, music, and—unexpectedly—lumber. Notably, none of these meanings is a synonym for “to embiggen,” the usage favored in the tech and development worlds. In these environments, which share little else, taking something “to scale” alw…
Read MoreDigital
The technology revolution in Nigeria is remarkable compared to other countries in Africa (the country completely skipped the landline stage of development!). As one of the top destinations for investment in Africa, Nigeria is home to booming tech startups that provide a collaborative environment for entrepreneurs across sectors. Powered by the N…
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Businesses in the West Bank and Gaza for decades have overcome political instability, regional violence, and economic blockades, maintaining a resilient focus on commerce.
Read MoreDigital
Digital technology has revolutionized the world by providing instant access to information, finance, and networks—all of which are necessary for women to reach their full economic potential and create more self-reliant communities. Today, 1.7 billion women in low- and middle-income countries still do not own mobile phones. The internet user gend…
Read MoreDigital
Hi, [email protected] readers! My name is Inta, and I am the newest staff member at DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration. I come to DAI from GeoPoll, a U.S. registered small business in the mobile for development space. Making the transition from a small business specializing in ICT4D to a large business with a rockstar ICT4D team has given me some u…
Read MoreDevelopments
Every year on this day, May 21, the United Nations celebrates what it calls the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. “Cultural diversity,” says the UN, “is a driving force of development, not only with respect to economic growth, but also as a means of leading a more fulfilling intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritu…
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Six years ago, a DAI-led team went to Lebanon to learn everything there is to know about the country’s apples, avocados, cherries, grapes, honey, olive oil, processed foods, oregano, pine nuts, and rural tourism sectors. They recorded their findings—from identifying existing and new potential target markets, how many farmers grow the produce, wh…
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In 2004, and for the first time, more money flowed into developing countries through direct investment, philanthropy, and remittances than through official development assistance. That trend has only accelerated in the years since.
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Half the world’s 7 billion people lack access to essential health services. That’s a terrible number, and yet an enormous market opportunity. The kind of opportunity that might pique the interest of mobile tech entrepreneurs who note that while many of these underserved people lack healthcare, they nonetheless tend to have mobile phones and some…
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Charcoal and other solid biomass fuels are still used in 70 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa, killing more than 4 million people annually and depleting forests, in turn reducing rainfall and contributing to climate change and other impacts. Luckily, it is not too late for Sub-Saharan Africa to avert a charcoal-induced public health and environmenta…
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In July 2017, following three years of development and validation testing, THINKMD implemented its frontline clinical assessment and data analytics technology in Bangladesh with Save the Children. We focused our work on the Rayer Bazar settlement in Dhaka, an overpopulated informal settlement where maternal and child mortality and morbidity are …
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An estimated 80 percent of El Salvador’s formal jobs are concentrated in greater San Salvador, according to the USAID Bridges to Employment labor market assessment. Yet close to two-thirds of the Salvadoran population lives outside of that metropolitan area.
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Jobs in computer programming can help level the playing field for talented young people. While being young is often a disadvantage in other industries, youthfulness is an advantage in the technology sector where youth are digitally savvy and have an aptitude for new technologies. Working remotely on IT projects allows greater flexibility for wor…
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It’s not easy being a young job-seeker when adults tend to stereotype millennials as unreliable or entitled. El Salvador is no exception. In a 2017 opinion poll of 2,000 individuals (ages 16 to 60) conducted by the USAID Bridges to Employment project across 15 high-crime municipalities, most respondents said poor work ethic and lack of motivatio…
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Salvadorans have a reputation as entrepreneurial, hard-working, and committed. In fact, El Salvador was ranked first on employee engagement among Latin American countries in Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report. At the same time, too many young Salvadorans do not get an opportunity to work hard in their first job and demonstrate their t…
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Six Jordanian pharmaceutical companies have reported an additional US$55.6 million in exports since installing the electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD) system in December 2016. The installation allows the companies to register their drugs in foreign markets using internationally recognized standards, enabling faster and more competitive d…
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Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) are guidelines that industry producers, traders, manufacturers, retailers, or service providers are asked to meet that encourage respect for basic human rights, worker health and safety, environmental impacts, community relations, land-use planning, and more. The standards include certification and ethica…
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Gender-lens investing is gaining momentum and for good reason. In the United States, most gender-lens investors target companies with significant numbers of female leaders and board members. Investing in these companies makes financial sense because they have proven potential to outperform the market: Numerous researchers have demonstrated lower…
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Audits, oversight procedures, compliance protocols—the language of public accountability can seem bureaucratic and dry. The reality in Uganda is anything but.
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East Africa’s immense livestock resources represent the largest proportion of Africa’s livestock population. Many millions of people depend on the sector for food, income, and employment, and it contributes greatly to the region’s gross domestic product and foreign currency earnings. Strategically located near the livestock markets of the Arabia…
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On January 3, 2019, a new U.S. House of Representatives was sworn in with 102 women members—a record number for the United States. All told, 127 women are serving between House and Senate, a 20 percent increase in the number of women over the previous Congress.
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Communities across Afghanistan—especially the dispersed populations in rural areas—have long endured a lack of basic health services due to low numbers of trained health workers and chronic security issues. But this situation is improving. Today, a program to bolster women’s inclusion in Afghanistan’s mainstream economy is also serving to fill h…
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Since the Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000, the number of out-of-school children in the world has dropped from nearly 100 million to 65 million, and in most countries, girls have achieved equal attendance in primary schools through hard-fought wins. At the same time, however, we are still not reaching millions of out-of-scho…
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Following is DAI CEO Jim Boomgard’s Foreword to Access for All, Brigit Helms’ new book on economic inclusion: For the first time in my career as a development professional—a career that goes back to the early 1980s—informed observers are talking in credible terms about ending extreme poverty, not just within our lifetimes but within the foreseea…
Read MoreCheckpoint
The rise of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization presented civilians caught in IS-controlled areas with limited choices. While a small percentage joined the group as combatants—either willfully or under coercion—more sought other ways to survive and provide for their families. In these situations, ordinary people can easily become compl…
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Editor’s Note: This post expands on a report originally prepared for the Centre for Development Results. The Somali peninsula—home to 14.32 million people—suffered a devastating drought in early 2017, leading to widespread crop failures and livestock losses that have dangerously affected the region’s food security. The Food and Agriculture Organ…
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Development responses to violent extremism are challenged by a lack of methods for rigorously testing assumptions about and determining the relative importance of different drivers of extremism. DAI’s Center for Secure and Stable States designed and implemented a mixed-methods research methodology for addressing these challenges on the Enhancing…
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Counter-threat finance—the efforts to reduce the flow of money that funds terrorism and organized crime—has been a key component of the international community’s struggle against terrorism since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. When we think of counter-threat finance, international banking, money laundering, and oil smuggling come to mi…
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In complex and unstable environments, standard performance monitoring is often insufficient to ensure activities remain relevant and adapt to the evolving ecosystem in which they are implemented. DAI’s complexity-aware planning (CAP) cycle is designed for situations where the understanding of a country’s conflict is narrow, conditions are consta…
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In conflict-affected countries, formal legal systems often are limited, with department or agency staffs absent or overloaded or both, leaving communities with few or no dispute resolution mechanisms. In their place, communities tend to rely on informal processes or institutions to resolve disputes before they escalate to violence. Development p…
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I recently traveled to South Sudan to investigate efforts to address trauma in a region that has experienced nearly 27 years of war since the 1980s. As a global development professional and trauma educator, I don’t need to be convinced of the need to address trauma as part of a portfolio of peacebuilding activities. Encouragingly, an increasing …
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As measures to counter violent extremism (CVE) are complex and unproven, development practitioners must pay attention to any and all variables that even appear to be important. One of those key common factors is the importance of a good facilitator. Luckily, the field of public health has much to teach us on this topic.
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Is it possible to build a fragility index that is truly useful as a tool for day-to-day development programming on the ground? That’s what we’re trying in Nigeria.
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It is broadly understood that language—especially generalizing and dehumanizing language—can play a central role in fostering communal violence. William Donohue has shown how the language of classification was a key early warning in the Rwandan genocide, for example. Such instances should remind the development community to be mindful of the wor…
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A review of “Conflict, Violent Extremism and Development: New Challenges, New Responses” One of the most acute challenges of working in conflict zones is differentiating between “legitimate” conflict actors and extremist groups. In countries such as Libya and Syria, state collapse has led to a proliferation of armed groups and institutions—all c…
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Recent research by DAI’s Enhancing Governance, Accountability, and Engagement (ENGAGE) project team in Mindanao demonstrates that while membership in violent extremist groups is overwhelmingly male, there is limited evidence to suggest that support for violent extremist ideologies differs fundamentally between the sexes.
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So-called fake news is an issue du jour in Washington and beyond. While it has undoubtedly been hyped for political reasons, fake news is real, its dangers clear and present—especially in unstable environments. Even in the United States, the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and subsequent Comet Ping Pong shooting in Washington, D.C., in December 2016…
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Since the Bamako Agreement of 2015, the international security and development community has invested in significant stabilization programs for Northern Mali, and specifically the Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal regions. Northern Mali and its roughly 1.3 million people are more engaged and resilient as a result, but now “the center” of the country—home…
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The social critic and author Christopher Hitchens wrote: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Research, applied learning, and fierce debates about measuring success and failure, about embracing new ideas and technologies, and about adapting concepts and practices from both the development and national defens…
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Anyone who has worked in transition or stabilization environments knows the value of good research. But good research tends to have two drawbacks that constrain its applicability for professionals working in unstable environments: it takes time and it’s expensive. Even the best research, if it comes too late, is of little use if you’re working i…
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DAI’s newsletter, offering feature articles, opinion pieces, and interviews on DAI projects and global development issues.
A forum for our professional staff and guest authors to share their ideas in depth and address issues of enduring interest.
A companion publication to our Developments newsletter, showcasing innovative thinking in capsule form.
DAI’s Digital for Development blog on what we’re learning in the rapidly emerging field of ICT4D.
Checkpoint is the blog for the Center for Secure and Stable States—where development and national security intersect.