As Africa faces a growing nutritional crisis alongside the challenges of climate change, rapid urbanization, and population growth, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is taking a bold step into its third decade with a renewed focus on nutrition. In an ambitious forward-looking prioritization, CAADP’s leaders and member states are increasingly advocating for “nutrition-sensitive” Agri food systems and agricultural investments that prioritize the quality, not just quantity, of the food produced and consumed across the continent. This is responding to the Biennial Review Report of the African union which highlights that 52% of the African people do not have ...

Countries need to develop digital solutions at scale to manage their health systems Digital solutions and platforms are critical for scaling effective logistics management in health systems globally. This blog summarizes how two countries – with the support of UNDP and other international partners –introduced and scaled digital logistics management systems in India and Indonesia. India[1] Since 2015, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – India, in partnership with Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, has supported the Ministry of Health (MoH) develop and implement the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system nationwide for real-time stock management and temperature monitoring of all ...

Since 2009 the Centre for Girls' Education (CGE) in Nigeria has made significant strides in advancing girls’ education, particularly in Northern Nigeria, where cultural and socio-economic barriers often hinder educational access. CGE implements community-based interventions aimed at increasing enrollment and retention among girls ages 4-24. The program's holistic approach—incorporating mentorship, scholarships, and community engagement—has fostered a supportive environment for girls to pursue their education. Notably, initiatives such as the Life Skills component of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) in Kaduna and Katsina states have directly contributed to improved academic performance for over 62,064 girls. As the ...

South America is burning. From Brazil – the largest Amazonian country – to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, and Venezuela, there are fires everywhere. This year so far, some 30 million hectares (74 million acres) have gone up in flames[1]. That’s an area the size of Italy. Cities as distant as São Paulo (Brazil), Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia) and Bogotá (Colombia) have been engulfed in smoke, contributing to cardiovascular and respiratory emergencies and raising concerns about long-term health. The losses to biodiversity, both flora and fauna, are incalculable; in Bolivia alone, at least 10,000 animals have perished, ...

Over the last 12 years Grand Challenges Canada’s Saving Brains program has invested $70M CAD in more than 140 social innovations to foster early childhood development in the Global South. We have taken a portfolio approach—not every program reaches scale effectively—but taken together our innovators have now reached more than six million people in 39 countries. In most successful scaling cases, our innovators have played an intermediary role in their work with regional or national systems, such as public health systems. The value of an intermediary in public sector scaling is familiar, but what have we learned about challenges and ...

Description This webinar was originally held under by the Center for Global Development (CGD). The view the original post click here. Today, nearly one billion people lack electricity, more than three billion lack clean water, and 750 million lack basic literacy skills. Many of these challenges could be solved with existing solutions, and technology allows us to reach the last mile like never before. Yet, few solutions attain the necessary scale to match the size of these challenges. Join the Center for Global Development for the launch of Scaling Up Development Impact, a new book by Isabel Guerrero, Siddhant Gokhale, and ...

Introduction It is imperative that the development community move beyond boutique, unscalable program designs towards sustainable scale-up of promising interventions, particularly through the public sector. However, pursuing sustainable scale through the public sector often puts organizations at cross-roads. The transition from direct project implementer to technical assistance (TA) provider, capacitating the government and system to own and be accountable for implementation, is a necessary approach to achieving sustainable scale. Yet, this transition brings with it critical tensions and considerations. In this blog, we reflect on our own experience in making this transition and provide lessons for the scaling-up community. Under ...

By Fares Georges Khalil, HundrED The process of scaling up education innovations is of increasing importance to both practitioners and researchers who are interested in education transformation. Without scale, it would be difficult to achieve the SDG 4 goals related to attaining inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. To this end, promising education initiatives are crucial as they aim to improve the relevance and quality of education and to enhance the accessibility and parity of learning opportunities. These innovations are often based on important advances in pedagogical sciences and include new approaches that leverage ...

By Feed the Future Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab, foodsystemsnutrition@tufts.edu Smallholder farmers, typically characterized by limited resources and production capacities, play a significant role in global food production. However, smallholder farmers in low-income countries face particular challenges that include low productivity, limited access to markets, and disproportionate vulnerability to climate change. There is a critical need to ensure that nutrient-rich foods produced around the world survive all the way to potential consumers. Good human nutrition and health depend on safe, high quality, diverse diets, and sustainable food systems require a significant reduction in the volumes of food that are ...

Executive Summary More than 4.5 billion people in developing countries are exposed to aflatoxins, one of the world’s most carcinogenic substances, through their diets. Produced by a group of molds called Aspergillus fungi, aflatoxins often contaminate groundnuts and grains such as maize. According to a 2020 study by Awuah et al., aflatoxin contamination levels in maize in Nigeria ranged from 2.6-85.9%, depending on the area. Solutions exist: Biocontrol, which involves applying nontoxic strains of Aspergillus to push out the aflatoxin-producing strains and reduce contamination, has been proven effective for more than a decade. One such product is AflasafeTM, developed by ...