FAQ SIV SIGN UP CONTACT US JOBS GLOBAL OFFICES Who We Are Our Work Publications News Careers Publications 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 ( Developments, Developing Alternatives, Digital@DAI ) below—or visit individual publication sites for a full archive. Facilitating Gender-Smart Investing Developments In June, the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and development finance institutions (DFIs) renewed and extended their commitment to gender-smart investing (GSI) through the 2X Challenge. They pledged to mobilize $15 billion by 2022 to provide women in developing countries with improved access t… Read More Gender-Smart Investing: The Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund Developments The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office-funded Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) sought to demonstrate that women in the Middle East have the interest, skills, and ability to play a much more active role in the economy. This unique program worked to improve women’s access to opportunities while supporting their agency—their voi… Read More Data Makes a Difference: How We Are Tackling the Next Pandemic Developments Many scientists and academics are warning that the next pandemic is right in front of us. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or bacteria developing resistance to drugs, has been growing in recent years, primarily due to overuse of antibiotics. Read More New Multi-Country Research Explores MSME Digital Tool Use in Emerging Markets Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic Digital As we approach the second year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world continues to reflect on the stark realities the crisis has forced us all to acknowledge, including key drivers of economic resilience for individual businesses. As countries take steps toward economic stabilization, it is clear that micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME… Read More GIS Data: Availability and Applicability, Part 1 Digital It is an understatement to say that data are often imperfect. There are often holes, missing pieces that always seem to be precisely the required piece to cement the foundation of your carefully crafted research question. The process of massaging that research question will not be covered here, but data exploration is pivotal in discovering what… Read More Q&A: Making Clean Energy Finance Work in Vietnam Developments Demand for clean energy is rapidly growing in Vietnam. To help mobilize finance for investment in clean energy, the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Vietnam Urban Energy Security project is working hand in hand with city governments in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City. There is, however, a critical gap between the finance available fr… Read More Climate Change Governance: Six Lessons Learned Developments Climate change works against the achievement of all the Sustainable Development Goals, from poverty reduction and food security to institution and capacity building. Recent World Bank estimates show that inaction on climate change will force 100 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030. Floods and droughts, reduced water supplies, and th… Read More Location-Based Platform Work Presents Benefits—and Risks—to Workers in the Global South, Part 1 Digital One of the wonders of the digital age is that if at 11 pm I suddenly crave a pizza (Hawaiian preferably—no shame!), all I have to do is click a few buttons on my phone, and voila! pizza is delivered to my door. While it may feel like the pizza arrived by magic, especially given the “no-contact” options made available since the start of COVID-19,… Read More Q&A: Switching to Renewable Energy is an Urgent Priority in Batloun, Lebanon Developments Marwan Kaiss has been the Mayor of Batloun, Lebanon, since 2016. Batloun is a small town in the Chouf district, which forms part of the Chouf Biosphere Reserve. Its natural beauty, proximity to the Reserve, and rich history make it a top spot for environmental and cultural tourism. Mayor Kaiss is driven to see Batloun become a “green town” and h… Read More Apply Now: Support USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on an Assessment of Farmer-Centric Models of Data Governance and Ownership Digital As the number of digitally enabled agricultural products and services continues to grow in regions across the globe, most of the data collected by the digital service providers developing these tools remain locked within each entity’s systems. Due to incomplete, fragmented, or non-existent data sets on agri-food system stakeholders, such as farm… Read More The Future is Looking Up: Satellites for Development Digital When predicting which technologies might have an impact on international development in the coming years, shifts in the economics of a technology are often more indicative of impending transformation than improvements in its capabilities. Particularly in emerging markets, even older technologies can suddenly become disruptive once their cost dro… Read More Mainstreaming Climate-Smart Approaches at all Levels of Ethiopian Society Developments Adapting to climate change and building resilience to its harmful effects is especially important in countries where the population is highly vulnerable to the effects of global warming, such as Ethiopia. That’s exactly what the GCCA+/Climate Smart Mainstreaming into the Productive Safety Net Program (Climate-Smart PSNP) has been focused on sinc… Read More Study Shows Most Costa Rican Companies Depend on U.S.-Based Tech Platforms to Sell Goods or Services Digital Like much of the developing world, Costa Rica has limited availability of digital technologies compared to industrialized nations. Due to this lag in digital transformation, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, commerce in Costa Rica was highly affected, leading to business disruption and unemployment. As of June, the country’s unemployment rate was … Read More Modernized Honduran Judicial System Promises Lower Costs, Increased Efficiency, Safer Communities, and Greater Transparency Developments Despite greater economic stability since 2000, Honduras has yet to significantly improve living conditions or reduce poverty for much of its citizenry. The National Autonomous University of Honduras reported that, in 2020, the extreme poverty rate had reached 53.4 percent and the total poverty rate 70 percent. Some economists have warned that th… Read More The Crucial Role of Social Protection Systems in Building Resilience to Climate Risks Developments Already facing severe climate-related disruptions, Bangladesh is now enduring the additional economic and human development setback of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both threaten to reverse the considerable gains made to reduce poverty and inequality in the country. Bangladesh is trying to stay one step ahead, however, by building social protection and… Read More Barriers to Digital Inclusion: What is Different for Children? Digital Throughout this past summer, DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration has been working with the Sesame Workshop on its Play to Learn program to explore the possibilities for using digital tools to provide education services among children, ages 3 to 8, living in crisis-affected communities. Read More Frontier Insights Yemen: Understanding Children’s Digital Access Digital Throughout this past summer, DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration has been working with Sesame Workshop to explore the possibilities for using digital tools to provide education services to young children living in crisis-affected communities. Using DAI’s Frontier Insights™ methodology, our researchers in Colombia, Yemen, and South Sudan talked… Read More Frontier Insights South Sudan: Understanding Children's Digital Access Digital Throughout the summer, the DAI Center for Digital Acceleration has been working with Sesame Workshop to explore the possibilities for using digital tools to provide education services to young children in crisis-affected communities. Using DAI’s Frontier Insights™ methodology, our researchers in Colombia, Yemen, and South Sudan talked to childre… Read More Land and Climate: Lessons from Ethiopia Developing Alternatives Climate change is leading to higher average temperatures and greater rainfall variability, with a pronounced effect on agricultural productivity and the suitability of major crops in Ethiopia. Farming households with tenure security are more likely to choose to access credit and to invest in their land by planting trees and longer-term crops, an… Read More Frontier Insights Colombia: Understanding Children’s Digital Access Digital Throughout the summer, DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration has been working with the Sesame Workshop exploring the use of digital education tools for young children in crisis-affected communities. Using DAI’s Frontier Insights™ methodology, our researchers in Colombia, South Sudan, and Yemen spoke with children and their parents and caregivers… Read More COP26 is a Chance to Do Justice to People and Planet Developments Over the past few weeks, I had grown concerned about the lack of clear direction and energy around climate talks in the run-up to COP26. At a time when unity and cooperation are the order of the day, world leaders appeared to be in discord. But announcements at the United Nations General Assembly in New York give me renewed optimism that when th… Read More Bangalore and the Hidden Costs of ‘Silicon Cities’ Digital Over the last 25 years, Bangalore, India, has transformed itself from a relatively sleepy second-tier city into a regional anchor for global technology corporations and a hub for innovative technology-driven startups. The international development community has cheered the growth of similar hubs in low- and middle-income countries—think Nairobi’… Read More Q&A with Protect Wildlife Leader Rebecca Paz: Biodiversity Conservation and Local Development Can Go Hand in Hand Developments The Philippines is a megadiverse country with rich marine diversity and unique coral reefs that 1,100 terrestrial invertebrates and 5 percent of the world’s flora call home. Sadly, these biodiversity assets face pressures such as land conversion for agriculture and settlements; illegal, unregulated, and unreported harvesting; and destructive min… Read More What is Agile? Part Two: A Primer on Different Frameworks Digital As discussed in part one of this series, agile is an umbrella term that encapsulates a number of frameworks, strategies, and tools. In this second installment, we dive a bit deeper into what agile is in practice by highlighting some of the most common frameworks used by agile teams. This primer on agile frameworks and methods will by no means be… Read More The Rise of TikTok: How One App is Making Waves in the Global Development Community Digital TikTok—the popular short video-sharing app—is now the fastest-growing social media platform on the internet. Rivaling companies such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Netflix, the controversial platform has amassed more than 2 billion downloads in more than 200 countries and 75 languages in just the past four years. And while the app has had su… Read More Is Intellectual Property Ready for Blockchain? Digital With its relatively low maintenance cost, increased transparency, reduced administrative burden, and resilience to fraud, blockchain is a versatile technology deployed in many sectors and businesses. So, what is blockchain, and could this disruptive technology have any application for managing intellectual property (IP) rights such as patents, c… Read More Choosing the Right Digital Platform for Learning and Training Needs Digital As the world familiarizes itself with online learning in our COVID-19-affected times, we have been exposed to many seamless ways to experience remote learning. However, when we switch roles—from learning to developing different types of courses—this generalized exposure and all the technical terms for ways digital learning material is presented … Read More Adults Teaching Children Digital Literacy in a Digitally Growing Society Digital Digital literacy goes beyond knowing how to create a TikTok account. True digital literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, comprehend, and use technology. Engaging with online content while simultaneously knowing the risks and limitations of technology is vital when participating in the digital world. Children today are using technology, now m… Read More Blockchain: Are We Beyond the Peak of The Hype Cycle? Digital A combination of mainstream media attention and Elon Musk’s Twitter feed has reignited the public interest in distributed ledger technologies, commonly referred to as the blockchain. CDA is no stranger to this technology; check out our blog post on blockchain and how we’ve applied these concepts in-house. Blockchain-based applications leverage t… Read More Can Regulators Keep up with Artificial Intelligence? Digital Artificial intelligence (AI) presents one of the most difficult challenges to traditional regulation. Three decades ago, software was programmed; today, it’s trained. AI itself is not one technology or singular development. It is a bundle of technologies whose decision-making mode is often not fully understood even by AI developers. AI solutions… Read More Emerging Technologies Provide New Opportunities to Bridge the Digital Divide Digital New investments in emerging technologies offer transformational opportunities in developing countries—particularly for rural and remote populations benefiting from internet connectivity. This blog highlights three developments for potential donor interventions to work with the private sector, governments, and users to bridge the digital divide. … Read More Digital Asia Accelerator Cultivates Digital Skills for Cambodia’s Creative Sector Digital Widespread digitalization has revolutionized almost every industry, including music and sound production. While rarely the focus of digital development initiatives, creative entrepreneurs such as artists and musicians in emerging economies have also found themselves scrambling to adapt to the ever-changing technology and social media landscapes…. Read More ICAI Highlights AWEF Success Factors Relevant to Employment Programming Developments The UK Aid-funded Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) began operations in 2015. Since then, it has brought about systemic change to market systems, giving women of all ages better access to economic opportunities. It has encouraged the adoption of new practices and approaches that support women’s economic empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, and Palest… Read More Malawi’s Land Governance is Headed in the Right Direction Developing Alternatives Malawi’s population is primarily rural, with most of the agricultural sector comprising farmers cultivating small, rain-fed plots intended to grow food for their own consumption. With a rapidly increasing population, the pressure on Malawi’s land and natural resources is high, particularly for smallholder farmers. Read More Natural Capital: Exploring a Financial Method to Evaluate its Cost Developing Alternatives Large capital projects are evaluated using the “weighted average cost of capital,” or WACC. Traditionally, WACC is composed of two elements: the cost of debt and the cost of equity. The Dasgupta review on The Economics of Biodiversity, along with the growing consensus in capital markets and financial regulation to account for all risks, makes cl… Read More USAID’s Partnership Approach Leaves Philippines’ Wildlife in Safer Hands Developments Approximately three-fourths the size of California, the Philippines is brimming with biodiversity. It is among the world’s 17 megadiverse countries that host more than 70 percent of the world’s plant and animal species. However, systems and local capacity to conserve, protect, and channel rich biodiversity and ecosystems toward sustainable devel… Read More Q&A: Innovative Storage Solutions to Improve Energy Access in Emerging Markets Developments As global economies turn toward renewable energy generation, energy storage solutions are becoming a critical part of the conversation. For Sub-Saharan Africa, which faces the largest energy access deficit globally, and where 600 million people lack access to electricity, innovations in energy technology are critical. Read More Power Grabbing in the Post-Pandemic Era Demands Targeted, Locally Driven Responses Developments In times of crisis—a natural disaster, political upheaval, or a global pandemic, for example—the social contract is often threatened. Governments must respond immediately despite operating with limited data, external groups with unknown agendas may choose to intervene, and vulnerable groups face greater risk of exploitation. “Power grabs” in tim… Read More EU Forest Project in Liberia Tackles Deforestation and Paves the Way for Stability Developments Liberia is home to half of the remaining rainforest in West Africa. Covering more than 60 percent of the nation’s land surface, forests are the fourth-largest contributor to Liberia’s economy and an important source of income for one-third of its 4.5 million people. They also make Liberia one of the world’s hotspots for biological diversity, hos… Read More Early Warning and Response System Increases School Enrollment and Retention Developments In the years leading up to 2020, school enrollment in Honduras suffered a steady decline. In 2018, 81,000 students (4.06 percent) dropped out. In 2019, some 105,000 students (or 5.39 percent of the total) abandoned their education to seek work, join gangs, or migrate without documents to the United States. Approaching the opening of the new scho… Read More USAID Projects Work Together to Bolster Trade between Pakistan and Central Asia Developments Despite their proximity, South and Central Asia are among the least economically integrated regions. Intraregional trade is estimated to be between 0.2 and 4 percent of their total trade to all destinations—significantly below regional trade in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Most of the countries in the two regions h… Read More World Bank Project Aims to Rebuild Gaza Solar Facility in Wake of Conflict Developments In the course of the latest conflict between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza, one of the Gaza Strip’s brightest beacons of promise was almost extinguished. The $11.2 million GIE Solar Energy Project—funded by the World Bank Group and financed through the Palestinian Ministry of Finance’s Finance for Jobs (F4J) program—lost approximately … Read More Health Equity is Key to Global Health Security Goals: Learning from COVID-19 Developments We’ve all heard the adage that “disease does not discriminate.” The reality is very different. The current pandemic has, in fact, shone a light on stark health inequalities around the world. The consequences of COVID-19 are experienced differently by people depending on their circumstances, whether they are in North America, Europe, Asia, or in … Read More STEAM Education Goes Online with Launch of Stemazone Platform in Oman Developments The stemazone initiative for Omani youth, funded by Eshraqa and designed and implemented by DAI, has launched in Oman. The innovative educational initiative is focused on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) for Omanis aged 7 to 15. Through the Sustainable Business Group and Center for Digital Acceleration, DAI partnered with… Read More This Time It’s Different: A New Measure of Competitiveness, Now Including Nature Developing Alternatives This article is the first in a series that explores the relationship between competitiveness and sustainability through a new lens that seeks to account for the use and abuse of natural capital. In this series—titled The Nature of Competitiveness: a New Worldview for Corporate Sustainability—we endeavor to identify solutions such as new business… Read More Zimbabwe Agriculture Project Finds Ways to Engage Smallholder Farmers, Despite COVID-19 Developments March 30 marked one year since the Government of Zimbabwe declared the country’s first nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. The strict lockdown and enforcement measures have caused significant hardship for most citizens, but particularly for informal traders in poorer urban areas and communities that depend on agriculture for thei… Read More Reaching the Needs of All Citizens in a More Democratic Pakistan Developments A government that citizens can trust with their hard-earned wages. A government that ensures its citizens feel their voices are heard. A government whose priorities reflect its citizens’ aspirations. Such a government is the bedrock of any nation. Yet far too many governments fall short of this goal. Read More 2030: The Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy Must be Swift—and Fair Developments The next 10 years are make-or-break for our climate. To limit the rise in global temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius, we must achieve significant progress on emissions reductions by 2030. At the same time, as a global community, we must ensure that the expedited transition to a low-carbon economy is not only rapid but fair, with no one le… Read More Good News: Dasgupta Just Raised the Bar for Your Company Developments The way we measure the success of a company has to change—and is changing. That was the message of the Dasgupta Review, a landmark study that confirms the paradigm shift we have all suspected for some time. Read More Q&A with Donald Lunan, Head of DAI’s New Climate Business Unit Developments Donald Lunan, DAI’s new Global Director for Climate, has worked at DAI since 2005. As head of the Climate and Environment team in the United Kingdom, he worked with governments, the private sector, and civil society to address climate and natural resource challenges. More recently, he led the Delivery Team for the U.K. Business Unit, overseeing … Read More Opening the Tap: A Coordinated Approach to Facilitating Green Finance for SMEs in Frontier and Emerging Markets Developments We can bemoan the amount of finance committed to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the developing world. But the sobering truth is that even the funding we currently have in the pipeline is not getting from upstream lenders and funders to downstream users where it really matters—that is, to the small enterprises, agribusinesses, and manufa… Read More Empowering Nurses to Strengthen the Mexican Health System Developments Mexico is facing numerous challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic and, simultaneously, a historically high burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including some of the highest prevalence rates of hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. People with underlying chronic health conditions have a higher risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms or dying … Read More Building Bridges to a Better Future for Vulnerable Young Salvadorans Developments With 16- to 29-year-olds making up a quarter of El Salvador’s population, young people have the potential to play a transformative role in the country’s labor market and contribute to economic prosperity in this Central American country, where economic growth has exceeded 3 percent only twice this century. Yet many young Salvadorans—confronted b… Read More Supporting Women’s Inclusion Through Community Development in Pakistan Developments Since the early 2000s, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), home to more than 30 million citizens in northwest Pakistan, has suffered from the effects of militancy and natural disasters. Taliban attacks from neighbouring Afghanistan and severe droughts and floods have displaced people, increased poverty, hindered access to basic services, an… Read More DAI hosts ANDE West Africa Workshop: How Incubators & Accelerators Can Build Corporate Partnerships Developments Many donors, governments, and corporations have recognized the need to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but another group—entrepreneurship support organizations (ESOs), which help those same small firms—are also suffering from a lull in funding and assistance. Read More Market System Lens Pays Dividends for Northern Haiti’s Cacao Sector Developments Once a major agricultural exporter with robust export industries in coffee and sugarcane, Haiti now accounts for a minuscule share of global exports for virtually all agricultural commodities—around 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent. Yet, strengthening agricultural exports—including cacao, the seed from which cocoa products are made—has long been held … Read More Strengthening the COVID-19 Response and Protecting Health Services in Uganda Developments COVID-19 infections in Uganda are rising fast. The country recorded its first case of the coronavirus in March 2020 and in the early stages of the pandemic most cases were identified at the borders, among people travelling from other countries. Since then, however, the country has seen a rapid increase in community transmission and clusters of i… Read More Fiscal Decentralization Builds Citizen Trust, Positions Ukraine for European Future Developments Sharing borders with four European Union (EU) member states—Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia—Ukraine is now a participant in the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, and thus a priority partner of the EU. Yet the ratification of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, begun in 2012 and concluded five years later, turned… Read More Why Aligning with the SDGs Helps Energy Companies Position for Growth, and How to Do It Developments Companies are increasingly required to demonstrate the socioeconomic value of projects to gain operating approval from national governments, secure capital from investors and financiers, or uphold their brands in the court of public and consumer opinion. These requirements are only intensifying as many countries face unprecedented economic and d… Read More Trade in the Time of COVID-19—Risk or Opportunity? Developments The COVID-19 pandemic is having a transformational impact on trade. The World Trade Organisation predicts trade will shrink by 9.2 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, while the International Monetary Fund has said that the pandemic “is the worst crisis since the Great Depression and that it will take significant innovation on the policy front, a… Read More Oman’s Journey to In-Country Value: An Approach to Local Content that Works for Government and the Private Sector Developments For resource-rich countries looking to derive value from their extractive industries beyond tax revenues and production-sharing arrangements, promoting “local content” has become a mainstay of domestic policy in the past few decades. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, governments have adopted more than 340 l… Read More Empowering Women: Lessons from COVID-19 and Beyond Developments COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns have seriously disrupted economic activity, affecting at least 80 percent of the global workforce, according to the International Labour Organization. While such instability threatens livelihoods across the board, women are disproportionately harmed by the pandemic because it exacerbates existing inequalitie… Read More Q&A with Jeffrey Mecaskey: How Community Engagement, Regulations, and Incentives Build a Path to Improved Healthcare Developments Jeffrey Mecaskey is the Team Leader of the Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa (TDDA) programme, a project designed to strengthen health security in Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Uganda. TDDA is funded by UK Aid and led by DAI Global Health. Read More A Digital Tool to Get the World Moving Again Developments This week’s news from Pfizer and Moderna about the efficacy of their COVID-19 vaccines offers a tantalizing glimmer of hope for all of us longing to get back to our lives and our work. But even if these and other vaccines are as good as advertised, global authorities will need a comprehensive and universally trusted system to confirm COVID-19 te… Read More A Shift in Mindset: Distance Learning during COVID-19 Boosts Participation in Honduras Developments Like many countries, Honduras was forced to close its schools by COVID-19. As a result, the Asegurando la Educación (Securing Education) project—a U.S. Agency for International Development project to support safe schools—was forced to give up its face-to-face interaction with educators, students, and parents. But necessity is the mother of inven… Read More Gender-Based Violence on the Rise in the COVID-19 Era Developments A Liberian mother choked back tears as she recounted how a police commander refused to accept her report about a neighbor who raped and impregnated her 13-year-old daughter. The officer didn’t believe her. Read More Commercializing Agricultural Innovations in the Age of COVID-19 Developments As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on, Sub-Saharan African countries have been gradually reopening thanks to largely successful efforts to combat the spread of the virus. Though scientists don’t fully understand why the continent has had low incidence and fatality rates compared to the rest of the world, most agree that quick action on the pa… Read More Development During Quarantine: Lessons from Four USAID Projects Developments Mobility is fundamental to global development work. People, materials, and information must reach areas that can be geographically remote or underserved by communication infrastructures. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed an industry that can no longer rely on access to travel and face-to-face engagement. With COVID-19 a global reality for the fo… Read More Mobilizing the Haitian Diaspora to Invest “Back Home” Developments In Haiti, more than 60 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day; in 2019, approximately 14 percent of Haitians were unemployed. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle to access the capital they need to grow, create jobs, and offer valuable products and services. Read More Stay the Course: A Decade of Focus on Economic Reforms Pays off in Ukraine Developments Few countries have experienced as much change in the past 30 years as Ukraine: independence, a switch to a market-based economy, the Euromaidan Revolution, foreign occupation of its territory, and a heavy currency devaluation, to name just a few of the events that have characterized this unsettling era. Read More How Donor-Funded Economic Growth Projects are Adapting to the Challenges of COVID-19 Developments Around the world, the advent of COVID-19 has been transformational for market systems-focused development projects. Many of the countries in which DAI works have implemented shelter-in-place orders, creating countless operational challenges as staff reduce or cease in-person interaction with partner firms, households, and other staff members. In… Read More How High-impact Businesses in Emerging Markets Are Pivoting in the COVID-19 Crisis Developments INVEST talks with advisors from USAID partner network members about the short and long-term needs of SMEs in emerging markets as these businesses attempt to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. This post originally appeared in Impact Alpha. Read More Local and National, Public and Private: Resilient Education Systems in the COVID-19 Era Developments The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of global education systems, as many schools have temporarily ceased in-person instruction and left students with unequal, inconsistent access to learning opportunities at home. Traditional education provision may not be possible for the foreseeable future. This crisis—and the threat of potential … Read More How Can Digital Financial Services be Utilised in Response to COVID-19? Developments The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted the provision of financial services worldwide, with many regular practices now impossible. Consumer banks have closed as part of lockdown measures, and where banks are still operational, distancing measures have constrained services and diminished provider contact. Travel restrictions in many countr… Read More How Knowledge Management Helps Make Remote Work, Work Developments COVID-19 has transformed the global workforce. Many organizations, including DAI, have transitioned to almost wholly remote working. And while collaborating across locations has always been necessary at DAI—we work in more than 100 countries—the scale of remote collaboration, with so many staff working from home, has never been this great. Read More How a Place-based Approach Built Climate Resilience in Indonesia Developments Indonesia knows climate and disaster risk: a vast archipelago of more than 18,000 islands and 230 million people, the country faces earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, drought, and rising sea level. Climate change is exacerbating these risks and compounding the vulnerabilities of the Indonesian people. As recently as 2019, for example, 11… Read More In Ethiopia, Keeping Land Rights on the Agenda Through the Pandemic Developing Alternatives During the COVID-19 health crisis, land might not appear to be an urgent issue. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the pandemic is more than a health emergency—it’s an economic and social emergency too, which threatens to worsen the economic outlook for many people who are already extremely vulnerable. We know those most at risk, in Ethi… Read More It’s Getting Easier to Do Business in Nigeria: How the Award-Winning Policy Development Facility Supported Reform Developments Nigeria has Africa’s largest economy and population. But as recently as 2016, the country ranked near the bottom of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index, which measures business regulations and their enforcement worldwide. Nigeria’s low ranking that year—169 out of 190 countries—reflected the difficulty businesses faced in dealing with … Read More How EuropeAid’s Pakistan BRACE Programme is Engaging Communities in the COVID-19 Era Developments At a time when social distancing and other restrictive measures are forcing almost all of our interactions to take place virtually, the European Union (EU)-funded Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment (BRACE) programme in Pakistan is harvesting responsiveness from already established networks to stop the spread of COVID-19. The… Read More USAID-Supported Enterprise in Ukraine Repairs Lung Ventilators for Use in COVID-19 Crisis Developments At the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, Vasyl Mazurin, an entrepreneur from Druzhkivka in eastern Ukraine, approached city doctors with an offer to help repair equipment that could aid patients suffering with COVID-19. Medical staff took him up on the proposal and presented him with their old, non-functioning lung ventilators. Read More Article Filter Looking for articles from a particular publication or focused on a particular topic? Click below to filter. Filter by Publication Developments Developing Alternatives Digital@DAI Filter by Solution Climate Digital Acceleration Economic Growth Education Environment Fragile States Global Health Governance Sustainable Business Developments DAI’s newsletter, offering feature articles, opinion pieces, and interviews on DAI projects and global development issues. 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