ABOUT THE COVER PHOTO: A Zambian enumerator interviews an officer from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife using Cultural Consensus Method (CCM). Photo by: Rosalia Mofolo for VukaNow Activity
Contents
- About Chemonics
- Cultivating Resilient Digital Ecosystems and Locally Led and Owned Solutions
- Sharing Knowledge and Experience
ABOUT THIS PHOTO: Xpert-Meca, a startup USAID Tunisia JOBS project supports in Sousse, Tunisia, designs and manufactures customized machines integrated with cutting-edge robotics technology. Photo by: Montassar Lassoued for Tunisia JOBS
About Chemonics
Founded in 1975, Chemonics is a leader in international development. We have worked in more than 150 countries to help our clients, partners, and communities take on some of the world’s toughest challenges.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO: A flight operation crew member brings in a drone after a long day of deliveries. Photo by: Moving Minds Multimedia for UNICEF Malawi
We integrate the principles for digital development into our work across sectors and geographies, with our global network of more than 6,000 local specialists who deliver and sustain development results in the communities in which they live and work.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO: Elizabeth Pemba with the lifesaving drone cargo near the Lifupa health center. Photo by: Moving Minds Multimedia for UNICEF Malawi
In communities around the world, we strengthen open, inclusive, and resilient digital ecosystems by supporting breakthrough solutions to persistent development challenges.
ABOUT THIS PHOTO: Students trying VR sets at the MEDIACOR, the center for digital media production at Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldova.
Cultivating Resilient Digital Ecosystems and Locally Led and Owned Solutions
Our digital development work applies digital technologies to expand market linkages and improve access to financial, health, environmental, and citizen-focused services while bridging digital divides and mitigating digital harm. We harness the power of digitalization to bridge physical divides when we equip farmers to connect with new markets at the touch of a button, assist rights activists in using open data to hold their government accountable, use drones to deliver lifesaving medical supplies to healthcare workers on remote islands, and support young entrepreneurs in learning critical skills for thriving in the 21st century. We support digital solutions that are locally led and owned by facilitating connections among stakeholders across disconnected geographies in the digital ecosystem.
PROMOTING ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH DIGITAL INNOVATION
Strengthening economic competitiveness is critical to our work — from engaging with the private sector to maximize economic growth to collaborating with universities to build workforce readiness. The USAID- and Sweden-funded Future Technologies Activity (FTA) works with businesses in Moldova to increase organizational capacity, financial sustainability, advocacy effectiveness, workforce development, and investment. FTA partners with private sector actors in fields such as information and communication technology (ICT), engineering, light industry, creative, and digital media to apply new technologies that can drive Moldova’s competitiveness and introduce digitalization initiatives. The program recently launched Mediacor, Moldova’s newest Center for Excellence — a skills-building platform and partner for Moldova’s burgeoning media sector. Mediacor will address industry constraints on content production and infrastructure. Learn more: Promoting Innovation Through New Technologies in Moldova
INCREASING INCLUSIVE ACCESS TO FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS
Through the USAID Small and Medium Size Enterprise Activity (SMEA), we assisted small businesses in Pakistan with overcoming structural inequalities in the digital ecosystem. SMEA provided grant funding for ICT-enabled solutions, connecting business development service providers with SMEs through digital tools and supporting relevant regulatory reforms. SMEA also helped small firms obtain data security standard certification from the payment card industry to support data security for customers and businesses. The current Pakistan Investment Promotion follow-on activity builds on these initiatives by assisting with the entry and establishment of investors in the country and fostering internal links. Learn more: Elevating Pakistan’s Enterprises
HELPING GLOBAL HEALTH SUPPLY CHAINS REACH MORE PEOPLE
The USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project integrates supply links for multiple health areas into one efficient supply chain that serves many of the world’s most vulnerable and difficult-to-reach communities. Working in nearly 60 countries, GHSC-PSM addresses critical global health challenges — eliminating HIV/AIDS, providing universal malaria coverage, meeting reproductive health needs, combating Zika, and improving maternal and child health. Learn more: USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program
In Nigeria, GHSC-PSM developed and deployed a cloud-based Commodity Order Management System that provides end-to-end visibility, enabling users at every level of the supply chain to monitor deliveries in real time as commodities are distributed to facilities. To empower country planners and connect them to global supply chain actors, GHSC-PSM also developed an open-source Quantification Analytics Tool. The tool facilitates the complex process of forecasting and supply planning by providing a modernized solution for improved access to data and system interoperability. Learn more: Tracking Health Commodities Down to the Last Mile: COMS and Data Warehouse Walk-Through
GHSC-PSM also piloted cargo drones in Malawi as a “last-mile” delivery solution for the country’s health supply chain. In remote regions, terrain, infrastructure, and resource limitations can delay, or even prevent, lifesaving diagnoses and medicine deliveries to hospitals and health centers. The project’s drones ran daily cargo flights between a hospital on the shore of Lake Malawi to health facilities on islands in the lake, ferrying critical health supplies and patient samples back and forth. The drones shortened transportation times by weeks, ensuring a more rapid turnaround in processing of samples and sharing results with clinicians. Learn more: Flying the Last Mile — Integrating Cargo Drones into Health Supply Chains
COMBATING WILDLIFE CRIME
To sustain the impact of digital development interventions, we catalyze learning and knowledge sharing among local private sector actors, civil society, and government officials. On the USAID VukaNow Activity, Chemonics supports innovative approaches to combat wildlife crime, particularly through the use of purpose-built technology. These are co-created with the private sector, and through grants to non-governmental organizations. The Activity developed eVukaLearn, an online learning platform, to provide access to content on combating wildlife crime for stakeholders such as the judiciary, wildlife forensics professionals, customs officials, park rangers, and journalists. Learn more: VukaNow
PROTECTING TROPICAL FORESTS AND ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE
Colombia Páramos and Forests Activity supports rural Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities with developing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) projects. These projects protect 650,000 hectares of tropical forests on the Pacific coast and generate carbon credits that can be sold on national and international markets to companies looking to reduce their carbon tax liabilities, with revenues reverting to the local communities. The project has already sold 6.1 million carbon credits, valued at $24 million. The sale of credits generated resources that directly benefit the forest communities. Páramos and Forests is using the FOREST application on the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) for local monitoring of REDD+ projects. Reliable monitoring is foundational to the verification process and eventual issuance of carbon credits or offsets by the projects. Learn more: Mitigating Climate Change in Colombia
STRENGTHENING CIVIL SOCIETY
The U.K.-funded Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) research program melds field data collection with satellite data and open-source investigations to examine conflict-affected areas and the factors that shape violent and peaceful behavior to inform effective policy responses. XCEPT analyzes data to look at the impact of intrastate conflict, people smuggling, migration, and other illicit translational dynamics on local governance and security, from southern Yemeni political strife to rising economic tensions along the Myanmar-China border. Learn more: Building Evidence on Cross-Border Conflict to Inform Effective Responses
In Haiti, Chemonics enhanced transparency within the justice system with the USAID Justice Sector Strengthening Program, which facilitated court automation through the design of an electronic case management information system, a low-cost, effective tool that relies on open-source software. The project improved the country’s legal framework, protected citizens’ lawful rights, and increased accountability and oversight within the justice system. Investing in Haiti’s approach to case management allowed 18 jurisdictions to speed up judicial cases and increase the transparency of the legal process. Learn more: Strengthening Haiti’s Judicial System
Sharing Knowledge and Experience
Chemonics fosters knowledge sharing and learning through digital solutions for programs with a global reach and decades of history:
- On the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), we analyze data and information that indicate an area is or will soon be facing food insecurity or famine. Using satellite imagery from NASA and remote sensing applications from the U.S. Geological Survey (among other tools), FEWS NET collects and refines detailed and highly accurate data sets to provide early warnings of agro-climatological issues across the network.
- Through the SERVIR Support Activity, we assisted USAID and NASA in connecting audiences to online data and tools through a Service Planning Toolkit, SERVIR’s methodological guidance for the design and implementation of user-oriented geospatial information solutions.
The Human Resources for Health in 2030 (HRH2030) improved the availability and use of quality, real-time data to respond to health workforce challenges and improved maternal and newborn health outcomes. In Indonesia, the activity partnered with the Ministry of Health to build a connected ecosystem of health workforce data that 1) strengthened the country’s main human resources information system, 2) used an open-source system to integrate data and develop an interoperability architecture and business intelligence platform, and 3) improved the ministry’s capacity to maintain the data warehouse and manage the platform.
Industry Engagement
We are also committed to broad industry engagement. We co-organize the annual Global Digital Development Forum (GDDF) — an information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) conference at which USAID and digital development practitioners from around the world share learning and advance our collective ability to effect change using technology. For three years in a row, GDDF has brought together over 2,600 professionals from 1,100 organizations and 133 countries to discuss issues, questions, and lessons relevant to challenges and opportunities in digital ecosystems, locally led development solutions, and emerging technologies. Chemonics also co-organizes the Frontiers of Digital Development Forum to demystify emerging technologies and critically examine their applications for international development.
Awards
7 Chemonics-implemented projects have received USAID’s coveted Digital Development Awards (DIGIs), including:
- In 2023, USAID recognized the Moldova Future Technologies Activity for their partnership with the crowdfunding platform Fagura to support underserved small and medium enterprises. Connecting Moldovan entrepreneurs directly with investors through an innovative peer-to-peer lending platform enabled them to transform their ideas into successful business opportunities.
- The USAID Colombia Rural Finance Initiative was selected in 2022 for developing a mobile phone-based system for rural smallholders and urban-based, low-income groups to conduct real-time, peer-to-peer financial transactions.
- In 2020, the Pakistan Small and Medium Enterprise Activity was recognized for its efforts to address structural inequalities faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises in the digital ecosystem and the Human Resources for Health in 2030 program won an award for its work to strengthen the human resources for health information system in Indonesia.
- The Moldova Competitiveness Project, funded by USAID and the government of Sweden, was selected in 2019 for its use of drones to digitize the plant inspection process in the country’s thriving wine industry.
- In 2017, the Biodiversity and Watersheds Improved for Stronger Economy and Ecosystem Resilience Project in the Philippines was selected for helping to prevent forest destruction and support conservation targets through mobile data collection and geospatial analysis. The Feed the Future Uganda Commodity Production and Marketing Activity (CPM) was selected for supporting Akorion — an information and communications technology for agriculture startup that helps increase access to financial services for smallholder farmers.
3 Government Innovation Awards for our USAID GHSC-PSM project’s use of UAVs and temperature and humidity monitoring sensors.
An Industry Innovators Award for our work with Arizona State University to develop TransIT, a transport management tool, to enhance supply chain visibility.
Innovation Awards from the Society for International Development-United States (SID-US) for our program work:
- Best in Show, 2020: Syria Injaz II’s promotion of remote learning in camps for internally displaced persons using an intranet system.
- “Planet Track,” 2020: Ukraine Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) activity’s Smart Pollination and Plant Protection services and “Judges Choice” for AGRO’s Vkursi Zemli platform, which improves access to funding for Ukrainian farmers.
- “People Track,” 2020: HRH2030’s mental health app, Vitalk, which promotes resiliency in healthcare workers
Published October 2022
Contact us for more information on Digital Development at Chemonics.