Style Matters: The Challenges of Communicating for Inclusive and Sustainable Development

Style guides inspire enthusiasm among writers, editors, and language lovers in general. As an editor, I appreciate their role in democratizing communication within groups or organizations of people with diverse perspectives and experiences, including at Chemonics. In 2020 and 2021, I had the privilege of serving on the team that updated Chemonics’ style guide. We…

Hiring Interns with Disabilities: Lessons in Inclusion from Development Project Offices

Every year, December 3 marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. An estimated one in six people on Earth live with a disability — whether apparent or non-apparent, permanent or temporary. Although societies around the world have made progress toward disability inclusion, people with disabilities remain severely underemployed compared to the general population. In…

World AIDS Day 2023: Remembering and Committing to End AIDS

In commemoration of the 35th World AIDS Day themed “World AIDS Day 35: Remember and Commit,” Chemonics reflects on three and a half decades supporting the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Join us in reflecting on milestones and committing to the ongoing journey by clicking on the interactive experience below!

Approaches for Building Investment Ecosystems in Africa: Lessons from Three Countries

As highlighted in the USAID Policy Framework, the agency recognizes the pivotal role of private sector engagement and investment as essential components of its development strategy. To turn this vision into reality, implementing partners must adopt innovative strategies that foster conducive environments for deal-making. Here, we explore three integral approaches to strengthening investment ecosystems: building partnerships,…

Filling in the Gaps: Generating Evidence through Applied Research Investments

There has been a notable shift across all USAID offices and the broader U.S. federal government towards a heightened emphasis on data collection, evidence generation, applied research, and learning, and the trend is evident in a series of regulatory and guidance documents. USAID’s 2022-2026 Agency Learning Agenda, along with USAID’s 45 sector-specific evidence and learning…

Applying the ‘Do No Harm’ Principle Through Informed Consent

Chemonics implements international development programs in a variety of sectors across the world, very often among communities that live in fragile and complex environments. Under such circumstances, communities are often wary of participating in surveys and data collection as this may expose them to intimation, discrimination, or violence. At the same time, collecting data remains…

What’s Trending in the Rule of Law Sector

Instead of organizing events around report outs from projects, what if we started with a bold proposition: What could we do this year that would really help produce new insights and innovations in rule of law, citizen security, and transitional justice projects around the world, especially implementing an approach that puts people and their needs…

How a Global Video Challenge Inspires Collaboration and Learning

By relying on paper records, Nepal’s health supply chain faced a challenge in ensuring essential medicines were reaching all of its population, including those in remote or hard-to-reach areas. To remedy this, our USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project worked alongside the Government of Nepal to co-develop an online database…

Context and Adaptation: The Secret Ingredients of Supply Chain Innovation

A few years ago, I attended a roundtable discussion on private sector engagement in public health supply chains. Several business leaders shared their wisdom about how to make private sector supply chain partnerships work. There was a lot of discussion about technology and other interesting subjects, but the insight that really stuck with me was…

A Second Malaria Vaccine Is Approved. Here’s How to Help It Fulfill Its Potential

In October 2021, we celebrated the most significant breakthrough in three decades of malaria research: the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S or Mosquirix), the first vaccine endorsed for prevention of malaria in children and infants. So far, the vaccine has protected more than 1.2 million children under two in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi…

Deconstructing Ingrained Patriarchal Attitudes in the Western Balkans One Individual at a Time

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a severe and systemic problem affecting individuals across the world, and leaving physical, emotional, and social scars that can last a lifetime. According to the World Health Organization, one in three women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Sexual…

Shifting the Migration Narrative: From Fragility to Resiliency and (Re)Integration

Migration from Central America remains on the rise, amidst dynamic human mobility patterns with complex and evolving demographic profiles. The growing waves of return and transit migration, with migrants fleeing dire living conditions in other countries in the Hemisphere (such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Haiti), are creating new pockets of fragility for Central America. Insecurity,…