Digital Archive....

Why has the Kenyan Shilling declined so sharply? Africa Can... - End Poverty How would you feel if, after a normal take-off, you noticed one of the engines on your plane wasn't working properly? What if you then found out the other engine was overheating? Now suppose the captain announces that you should buckle-up because the plane is about to meet an approaching hurricane? This is what Kenya's economy is currently going through. The country is in the middle of a perfect storm, and the declining Shilling is the most visible manifestation of Kenya's economic woes. Why has the Shilling been falling so much and so unpredictably? The main reason is that Kenya's economy is increasingly imbalanced: the country is importing too much and exporting too little . This makes it vulnerable to shocks.  The gap between imports and exports needs to be financed by financial inflows other than export earnings. In 2011, imports have soared (mainly due to hig...

Malaria vaccine set to save millions of lives, but who will fund it? Global development: Poverty matters blog | guardian.co.uk As the malaria vaccine continues to prove sceptics wrong, the next obstacle for the World Health Organisation is cost Malaria is a mass killer, taking just under 800,000 lives a year. Most of them are babies and children under five. A significant number are pregnant women. It is an entirely preventable disease, caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquito bite, but the millions who live under its curse are too poor and have too few options to be able to avoid it. The malaria vaccine that now appears to be within reach, following successful large-scale trials in seven African countries, is a potential game changer for the rural villagers whose children are the main victims of this ancient disease, which was named "mal'aria" for the bad air medieval Italians thought caused it. Early results from 6,000 babies aged 5-17 mon...

Timely nudges could address Malawi's increasing agricultural woes Innovations for Poverty Action Blog We first suggested "nudges for development" as a replacement for Malawi's renowned, but costly, farm input subsidy program (FISP) back in December .  It looks like the idea could be even more relevant now that the program is shrinking . We look to what research results can offer as a potential alternative– one that is sustainable and won't be as costly for the Malawian government, which spent about 20 billion kwacha (currently US$121 million) on FISP during the 2010/11 fiscal year. This figure made up a sizeable 6.7% portion of Malawi's total budget of 297 billion [Source: Malawi Budget Statement  (pdf)].  Donors, too, are seeking alternatives: "We are currently considering options for new support to agriculture in Malawi," Andrew Massa, a communications officer for UK's Department for International Development (DFID), ...

Five Investments You Can Skip SSIR Opinion & Analysis It seems like every week a new report is released calling for nonprofits to adopt a practice or increase investment in yet another area of their organization. The list of things a nonprofit must do to be effective is now miles long and ridiculous. As a leader of one of the largest capacity-building organizations in the country, I want to let you in on a little secret. You can ignore nearly all these findings and best practices. Nonprofit consultants and the industry's media are largely to blame for this proliferation of noise. It is not due to bad intentions. It is simply a natural outgrowth of specialization, survival and marketing. Consultants become specialists (in social media, strategy, governance, and so on)—and they need clients to survive. Unfortunately, some turn to the tried and true marketing formula of: think up a potential "next big thing," tell a few success stories, s...