Tagged: poverty

  • February 24, 2021

    Confronting dilemmas in humanitarian response

    Written by
    Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

    Wealthy nations are now fragile states. Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity. And, the damage done by a global pandemic is not yet fully known but has already erased a decade of progress in the fight against extreme poverty. We are living in a world where crises are proliferating and take much longer to resolve. Some never end.

    My guest for this episode of A Deeper Look, Heba Aly, is drawing attention to the many forces disrupting the world and the implications for us all. Heba is the Director of the New Humanitarian, host of the podcast Rethinking Humanitarianism, and a career journalist. Heba is questioning everything from the power dynamics in aid to the increasingly intertwined nature of humanitarian response and development.

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  • March 11, 2020

    The future of global development: The shape of U.S. education in the 2020s

    Written by
    Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

    What are the systems, trends and ideas that are shaping education in the United States? What needs to be done to promote transformative education reform?

    In this episode of A Deeper Look podcast, I speak with education reformer Dr. Warren Simmons, currently Senior Policy Advisor at the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. We draw parallels between the challenges in education reform in the United States and in low-income countries, including how inadequate funding models can perpetuate a cycle of poverty and how successful programs can be difficult to scale and replicate. We also discuss the power of local voices and community organizing and the importance of making our education systems more culturally responsive. Dr. Simmons highlights the need for cross-sector partnerships in order to achieve lasting reform and discusses how schools and communities must work together to adapt to the future.

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  • December 11, 2019

    The darker side of development: Addressing poverty and inequality in the United States

    Written by
    Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

    This year, we’ve been exploring the darker side of development, and we’ve examined examples of the paradoxes and unintended consequences of international development efforts. In the final episode this year, I sit down with David Dodson, President of MDC, to discuss parallels and shared lessons between U.S. and global development challenges and solutions, particularly with respect to addressing poverty and inequality.

    David and I explore the structural issues that lead to inequality, the importance of data-informed decisions in addressing poverty and the ebb and flow of progress within development. We discuss how promoting individual and group agency and localization is crucial to development efforts around the globe.

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  • August 2, 2018

    Two perspectives on the life-changing DREAMS partnership

    Written by
    Jennine Meyer, Associate Director of Communications, FHI 360

    The Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe women (DREAMS) partnership aspires to reduce HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. These countries alone accounted for more than half of the HIV infections that occurred among adolescent girls and young women globally in 2015.

    DREAMS reaches beyond the health sector to address the direct and indirect factors that increase girls’ HIV risk, such as poverty, gender inequality, sexual violence and inadequate education. Interventions can include paying school fees, providing bicycles to girls who would otherwise walk long distances to school, supplying sanitary napkins for menstrual hygiene management and offering mentoring to help girls avoid early pregnancy, gender-based violence and discrimination. DREAMS is supported by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Girl Effect, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences and ViiV Healthcare.

    Two young women who participate in DREAMS projects attended FHI 360’s 2018 Gender 360 Summit and discussed how DREAMS is making a difference in their lives. Here are their stories.

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  • November 29, 2016

    Banking on the unbanked

    Written by
    Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

    Financial exclusion is a central component of the poverty trap, foreclosing economic opportunities for the “unbanked” and making it almost impossible to start or grow a business. Billions of working people, mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, lack access to basic financial services, with women, the uneducated and migrants especially disadvantaged.

    The microfinance movement in the 1970s realized that giving people — especially women — access to even tiny amounts of credit unleashes individual initiative and that creating the conditions for people to be more self-reliant is inherently empowering. As microfinance programs grew into established institutions and as emerging economies have become more formalized, the disparity between women’s and men’s access to financial services has grown. Today, approximately 58 percent of women have a bank account compared to 65 percent of men. This is not only an indicator of inequality, but it also exposes the fact that more than 35 percent of working people are excluded from opportunities for upward mobility.

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  • March 31, 2016

    A conversation on ending extreme poverty

    Written by
    Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

    What will it take to eradicate extreme poverty?

    I sat down with Carla Koppell, Vice President for the Center for Applied Conflict Transformation at the United States Institute of Peace to discuss the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) ambitious Vision to End Extreme Poverty. A former Chief Strategy Officer at USAID, Koppell shares her insight on how the international development community can turn vision into reality.

    Why focus on extreme poverty? How do strategies for addressing extreme poverty differ in states with weak institutions? How do we balance getting rapid results with strengthening local capacity? These are just a few of the topics we dive into as we search for ways to turn ideas into action.

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