Blog
Providing Low-Income Customers with Life-Improving Products
July 26, 2018
By Katie Gross and Evgenia Sokolova When Lilian first saw the modern charcoal stove for sale through a local retailer in her town of Kiserian, Kenya, she admired the product. But with only 1,000 shillings (USD $10) in her pocket, she couldn’t afford to pay for the $40 stove outright. School fees were a struggle […]
Winrock Forward
July 17, 2018
Winrock President and CEO Rodney Ferguson outlines his vision for creating maximum impact. Interview by Chris Warren As the President and CEO of a development organization with projects in the U.S. and around the world, Rodney Ferguson often carves out reading time while on airplanes. On a recent trip from his home base in Washington, […]
Getting Credit for Solar
June 18, 2018
By Samwel Tobiko of Juhudi Kilimo, and Genia Sokolova, Winrock finance consultant In Kenya, 80 percent of the population derive their livelihoods from agriculture, yet the share of agricultural finance in national credit is below 5 percent. Juhudi Kilimo, a Kenya-based microfinance institution, aims to address unmet demand for agricultural lending by focusing on rural […]
Protecting Resources, Improving Lives
March 27, 2018
By Lauren Keller, senior program associate and M&E specialist, Forestry and Natural Resource Management Nga Dang, Payment for Environmental Services development specialist. What do a pair of pigs have in common with a hydropower plant? Just ask Lang Thi Hoanh of Chieng Village in the Bat Mot commune of Vietnam. She and other women have […]
The Log Blog
January 8, 2018
By Gabriel Sidman, Spatial Analyst When a tree falls in the forests of Colombia, it does make a sound — a loud one — but only for a moment. The sound starts with the monotonous drone of a chainsaw, cutting the thinnest of wedges near the base of the tree, followed by a piercing crack […]
Water Security and the Global Water Strategy
December 13, 2017
By Eric Viala, Sustainable Water Partnership Director On November 1, in what otherwise might have been a typical congressional hearing, Republican Congressman Charles Dent looked toward his former colleague, newly installed USAID Administrator Mark Green, and posed an interesting question: “Water scarcity is known as a threat multiplier… What more will USAID do under your […]
Letter from Sumba
November 9, 2017
Illustration by Jessica Kelley; Story and Photographs By Anne Cassidy To reach Kataka School, you drive east along the coast from Waingapu, then head south into the rugged hills of Sumba, Indonesia. Flashes of silvery ocean appear outside the car windows, and, deeper inland, a herd of wild horses. As you near the school you […]
Feeding the People
October 16, 2017
By John Fisk, Director, Wallace Center at Winrock International October 16 is World Food Day. What does that mean, you ask? It means too many people in the world still deal with hunger and extreme nutritional deficiency. It means we must still pay attention and seek solutions. In her seminal book Diet for a Small Planet, […]
Getting Pumped
September 20, 2017
By Evgenia Sokolova, finance consultant to Winrock’s Clean Energy Innovations team “I fell in love with that water pump the first time I saw it,” said Joshua Okundi, a passion-fruit farmer from Kendu Bay. Okundi (pictured above, center, with blue cap) is one of the 9,000 farmers who saw the solar pump at one of […]
What is Water Security?
August 7, 2017
By Eric Viala, Sustainable Water Partnership Director Water fuels every aspect of life. It’s essential for basic health and hygiene, and it drives society’s most essential industries: agriculture, energy and transportation. Without water security there can be no national security. In fact, water is essential to the stability of every country on the planet. Understanding […]