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Our People .

Senior Specialist, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Practice Branden Ryan

Branden Ryan has eight years of international development experience in gender equality and social inclusion, project management, training, and business development. In his role, he ensures that projects and proposals mainstream and integrate gender equality and social inclusion principles and conducts technical outreach, communications, and research activities. Prior to joining Chemonics, he worked with Crown Agents USA on full proposal recruitment, project management, and GESI integration activities. Branden is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Tanzania, and during his time coordinating the post’s gender equality portfolio, he developed and facilitated training on student-centered secondary education, small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health, women’s health and menstrual hygiene management, and arts-based empowerment. He has an M.A. in security policy studies with a focus in peace and conflict resolution (gender/East Africa) from George Washington University and a B.A. in international affairs and Spanish from Mercer University.

by Branden Ryan


Putting LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development in Action: Awareness, Advocacy, and Allyship

Trends in acceptance rates of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) community over the past forty years are mixed, with 56 countries experiencing increased acceptance of the LGBTQI+ community and 57 seeing declines in acceptance and backsliding of LGBTQI+ rights. A growing number of initiatives are peeling back the curtain on data…

3 Building Blocks for Mobilizing Inclusive Climate Finance

The private sector, recognizing the economic threat and global calls to climate action, has mobilized corporate pledges to avert climate disaster and bridge the nearly $4 trillion financing gap for climate financing by 2030. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), nearly 500 global financial services firms agreed to align $130 trillion – some…

Going the Extra Mile to Reach the Last Mile

Two supply chain experts, Bongisiwe Mosekoa and Fikreslassie Alemu, share strategies they’ve applied in Eswatini and Ethiopia to address social factors and systems challenges behind medical commodity uptake, implement inclusive delivery practices for last mile distribution, and ensure sustained health outcomes for everyone, including underserved populations such as people living with HIV/AIDS, youth, pastoralists and…

3 Questions with Cecilia Barraza on Leveraging Mobile Apps for Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response During COVID-19

Colombia, like other countries, implemented stay-at-home measures and restricted certain social services to limit the spread of COVID-19 beginning in mid-March 2020. Women and girls have disproportionately faced increased risks of experiencing gender-based violence (GBV) due to the socioeconomic fallout, and women in Colombia often lack consistent and reliable pathways to report violence. In response,…