Integrated Development

  • Adaptation: Key to building a stronger Nigeria

    On August 3, 2017, FHI 360 will host an event, Building Resilient Communities in Changing Times, in Abuja, Nigeria.

    FHI 360 has had a continuous presence in Nigeria for more than 30 years, and our programs have reached more than 20 million Nigerians. Over that time, our commitment to using science to improve lives has required us to adapt our programs and be flexible and creative.

    Whether focused on health, education or gender, our activities in Nigeria are integrated and designed to produce results that go beyond project targets. As an example, our Strengthening Integrated Delivery of HIV/AIDS Services (SIDHAS) project has not only provided HIV testing, it has also provided skills training to people with HIV to enable them to earn income and support their families. When people with HIV receive regular health care, they can continue to thrive no matter what their HIV status may be. They are living examples of adaptation.

    Continue reading

  • Four major famines have taken place so far in 2017, which has renewed attention on the urgent need to address food security globally. However, food security involves much more than responding to famines, and it is closely linked to factors such as governance, which plays a significant role in fragile states and developing countries. FHI 360 held a Facebook Live discussion on how integrating governance, agriculture and food security can benefit food security programs. The conversation was moderated by Gregory Adams, Director of the Locus Coalition at FHI 360, with FHI 360 experts Joseph Sany, Technical Advisor, Peacebuilding and Conflict Mitigation, and Annette Brown, Director, Research and Evaluation Strategic Initiative.

    Continue reading

  • Digital technologies enhance the resilience of individuals and communities

    We live in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. The risks to much of the world’s population that stem from climatic, political and economic fluctuations have played out again and again in recent years. While emergency response and humanitarian aid still have an important role to play, the development community is increasingly interested in how to build the resilience of individuals, communities and systems not only to survive these shocks and stresses, but also to adapt to them and better prepare for future occurrences.

    There is no single solution for building resilience, as it is highly dependent on the population in question, the risks they face, local infrastructure and resources, and a number of other factors. However, one tool that has the potential to facilitate increased resilience across a range of contexts is digital technology.

    Continue reading

  • Understanding the relationships among food security, climate change and conflict

    Despite decades of investments to improve food security for the world’s poorest people, hunger and malnutrition are still problems for many. Indeed, a daunting food security crisis currently puts more than 20 million people at risk of starvation in just four countries: Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 42 million children under the age of 5 will be malnourished by 2050, and 10 million additional children will be malnourished if climate change impacts continue unabated.

    This crisis calls for improvements in identifying, understanding and addressing the interlinked factors that result in broadscale food security crises. The cycle of resource degradation caused by climate change that leads to food insecurity, starvation and ongoing conflicts raises the question of whether climate change itself is a “threat multiplier” that increases the potential for conflict. Evidence suggests that the interplay between these sectors is critical to the emergence or development of many humanitarian crises. However, the complexity of these relationships and the role of climate change as a threat multiplier are less understood.

    Continue reading

  • Same recipe, different geography: Holistic approaches are smart for girls and women everywhere

    A version of this post originally appeared on Locus. Reposted with permission. Locus is a coalition of organizations dedicated to advancing evidence-based solutions to global development challenges that are integrated, driven by local communities and based on shared measures. FHI 360 is a member.

    Here’s a development scenario you’re probably familiar with: Imagine a young girl growing up in a remote rural area, raised in a poor family. Girls here are not typically encouraged in the same way as boys are to imagine themselves having exciting future careers, nor even the more vanilla option of working at the sole local factory. Virtually all the local authority figures are men. Contraception (especially for adolescents) carries a shameful stigma and is difficult to access. The girl’s school is chronically underfunded. Some of her peers get pregnant early, some drop out of school, some marry early. In short, she faces several financial and social barriers to a healthy, stable and productive future. Now be honest: were you picturing a young girl from a poor country in Africa or Asia? If so, you’re wrong.

    That girl was me. Who grew up in America and is now a healthy, educated woman with a successful career. Does now knowing that the girl in the story was American make the happy ending less surprising? Probably so, and that illustrates a fundamental problem with the way we approach empowering women and girls in the developing world. Indeed, clearly the privilege of growing up in America provided me with a deeply significant advantage in overcoming those initial roadblocks to a healthy and happy life. But what about all of the other various ingredients, that when combined together became my recipe for success? Shouldn’t girls and women be supported in the same way, no matter where they live? Let’s break it down.

    Continue reading

  • Global health in the age of the SDGs

    Over the past 15 years, we have witnessed major declines in child and maternal mortality and progress in the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in countries around the world. Still, an estimated 5.9 million children under 5 died in 2015, mostly from preventable causes. That same year, 2.1 million people became newly infected with HIV, and an estimated 214 million people contracted malaria.

    In this podcast, I speak with Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, an eminent physician and CEO of Big Win Philanthropy, an independent foundation that invests in children and young people in developing countries to improve their lives and to maximize demographic dividends for long-term economic growth.

    Continue reading

  • Aid agencies can learn from other industries to advance integrated development approaches

    The years leading up to the 2015 benchmark for global goals saw enthusiastic calls for doing development differently, reaching a crescendo as the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted to guide our work through 2030.

    Specifically, the new SDG era’s focus on integration among previously siloed social, economic and environmental aims has aid agencies wondering how to better address complex, 21st-century development challenges through meaningful cross-sector collaboration. In this industry, we like staying in our lane: doing what is familiar, what we are good at, and what we can count. As a result, we’ve become so focused on a plethora of micro-targets in isolation that we’ve lost sight of how families, communities, and societies actually work. How can we start moving beyond the long-entrenched, single-issue programs run by highly specialized staff? What can we do differently to better respond to people’s multifaceted lives?

    To flip the script and make decisions based on actual problems (and their many root causes) rather than shaping them to fit the status quo development siloes, we designed a decisionmaking tool called the Development Sector Adjacency Map. The map offers insights about common relationships between development fields (called adjacencies) and strategic considerations to leverage those linkages through strategic adaptation and expansion.

    Continue reading

  • Does evidence tell us that integrated development approaches work? It depends!

    ID Summit logoWhen we tackle complex, global challenges and their many root causes, intuition tells us that development initiatives need to be more holistic — the approaches may need to be as interconnected as the problems. Even the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda states its aims are integrated and indivisible. Yet, the critically important question, “What evidence supports integrated development in practice?” can best be answered through the saying “context is king.”

    Integration is an umbrella phrase that can describe thousands of different cross-sector approaches — from health and microfinance, to nutrition and education, to conservation and livelihoods. Consider how evidence showing huge impacts in the integration of savings groups with girls’ education would be relevant for people trying to decide whether to integrate agriculture and environmental conservation. Context matters. A lot. What is being integrated with what? How? For what purpose?

    Global development decisionmakers must resist the temptation for a simple, universal answer to whether integration works. The notion that any one gold-standard study on its own will answer the integrated development hypothesis is false. Evidence for cross-sector approaches will always depend on the specific sectors, geography and people in question.

    Continue reading

  • What do AIDS 2016 in Durban and integrated development have in common?

    A version of this post originally appeared on Huffington Post. Reposted with permission.

    As FHI 360 and the global health community prepare to travel the “Road to Durban” to the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), it is poignant to reflect on how far we have come since the AIDS 2000 meeting held in Durban, South Africa. I recommend taking the time to read a recent message from the conference organizers titled, The Return to Durban: A Critical Moment in History.

    After reading the piece, I was reminded of what a critical role the entire development community, including organizations like FHI 360, has played in the global response to HIV. I am inspired every day to witness how the broad global response has rallied around the concept of building on the available evidence and advancing integrated development solutions — which is why we continue to make real and sustainable progress in battling HIV.

    As part of FHI 360’s deliberate approach to advancing integrated development solutions, we will be hosting a summit June 13, 2016, in Washington, DC, titled, Greater than the Sum of its Parts: The Power of Integration. The event will be a space for innovative thinking, learning and dialogue that will focus on the “how” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The discussions will include global development leaders and practitioners, policymakers, donor organizations and other change-makers.

    Continue reading

  • Integrated development approaches are challenging but resonate with clients

    Tamimah grew up in Nakuru, a community in Kenya’s Rift Valley where the rate of HIV infection is high and where many young people don’t graduate high school. Tamimah’s early home life was precarious: Her mother left her and her three younger siblings, and her father provided limited support. The children were raised primarily by their grandmother.

    Before Tamimah turned 13, her grandmother died, leaving the children without primary support. Tamimah and her two sisters and brother struggled to take care of themselves, stay in school and be healthy. It was “very hard to grow up in this place,” Tamimah said.

    Things began to shift, however, when they were recruited to take part in APHIAplus, an FHI 360 project focused on improving health care delivery and multisector services to vulnerable populations in the Rift Valley. Through APHIAplus, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Tamimah gained access to health education and services. She also received support to cover the costs of her school fees and supplies.

    From these multipronged activities, there was a ripple effect: She was able to stay in school. Upon graduation, Tamimah studied tailoring through a vocational program also offered through APHIAplus and was able to provide for her siblings. After a year, she saved enough to open Al Hamis Café, named after her brother.

    Continue reading