September 2017 Newsletter
Posted on September 26, 2017.
Welcome to the September 2017 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
IN THIS ISSUE
Letter from our Executive Director
The Pacific Northwest is known for its natural beauty, technical innovation, and a collaborative, can-do spirit. That’s why I’m not surprised that so many advancements in humanitarian aid and development are coming from right here in our region.
Disruptive innovation in the financial sector is happening all over the world, but nowhere is this more true than in developing countries. As humanitarian organizations experiment with ways to deliver financial aid to families in emergencies, digital forms of cash have opened up new avenues to make a transformative impact.
An estimated two billion people currently don’t have bank accounts, and yet 80 percent of adults in emerging economies have a mobile phone. Rather than sit back and wait for commercial banks to reach more people, disruptive development change makers are working to make sure poor people have access to affordable financial tools to better manage their savings, protect against losses, and invest in their future.
In this month’s issue we dig deep on this topic. The technical lead for financial services in crisis at Mercy Corps gives us her thoughts on what it takes to succeed in this field and where she thinks it’s all heading. Then we take a closer look at how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working together with humanitarian organizations, governments and business partners to clear the way for this transformation in financial solutions for the poor.
As we head into the fall and winter months, I hope you will learn more about the global work of non-profits, for-profits, academic institutions and foundations based in the northwest region, and the global leadership needed for the future. Find out more at Renewing.Global and join the conversation at our annual conference on November 29. Hope to see you there.
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
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Issue Brief
Innovations in Cash-Based Aid Help Promote Financial Inclusion for the Poor
By Andie Long
Flooding in Bangladesh in early 2017 impacted nearly 5 million people. Affected families received cash from World Vision to purchase food and rebuild their lives. Photo: World Vision
Humanitarians have begun to acknowledge a painful reality: There are more people in critical need globally than we can reach. That is, if we stick to business as usual in emergency response.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, “An unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been forced from home.” Layer on slow onset disasters like the hunger crises that have been building in Yemen and Eastern Africa, and add in sporadic natural disasters – earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, landslides – and you have a global response community stretched almost to the breaking point.
Giving cash directly to people in emergencies is one solution to the growing gap between humanitarian needs and capacity. In fact, research over the last decade has proven this method of aid delivery to be not only cheaper than traditional in-kind aid, but also incredibly effective at alleviating suffering.
A paper jointly authored by the Overseas Development Institute and the Center for Global Development two years ago extolls the benefit of cash-based humanitarian aid where appropriate. In addition to reducing the cost of providing aid, giving cash instead of stuff increases the speed of the response, improves transparency, and enables recipients to purchase exactly what they need when they need it most. And it has the added benefit of supporting local economies and businesses.
Catherine Nabulon, 34, of Abulon, Kenya, uses her E-wallet to procure safe drinking water for her family. Photo: Joy Obuya/Oxfam
To be sure, giving cash is no panacea. Where markets aren’t functioning, and where broader systemic needs are lacking, traditional aid responses are still necessary.
Only about 6 percent of all humanitarian aid is cash-based today, but that figure is growing. Further, cash aid is increasingly going digital, and this presents an opportunity to solve yet another challenge associated with poverty: financial exclusion.
According to McKinsey & Company, two billion people in emerging economies lack access to formal savings and credit. Having access to formal financial services would enable the poor to better manage their financial lives.
While they may not have access to financial services, nearly 80 percent of adults in emerging economies have something else – a mobile phone. Foundations like The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and aid organizations like Mercy Corps are increasingly exploring ways to turn cash-based aid into an on-ramp to wider financial inclusion for the poor.
A Mercy Corps partner in Bangassou, Central African Republic, explains to beneficiaries how a community bank works. Photo: Sean Sheridan for Mercy Corps.
The following Global Washington members are currently providing cash-based emergency aid globally, whether in the form of physical cash and vouchers, or as mobile money and electronic vouchers:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor program aims to play a catalytic role in broadening the reach of robust, open, and low-cost digital payment systems, particularly in poor and rural areas—and expanding the range of services available on these platforms. Their approach includes three objectives: Increasing poor people’s capacity to weather financial shocks and capture income-generating opportunities; generating economy-wide efficiencies by digitally connecting large numbers of poor and low-income people to one another and to financial services providers, government services, and businesses; and reducing the amount of time and money that poor people must spend to conduct financial transactions.
Mercy Corps
Over the last decade, Mercy Corps has implemented cash programming in 31 countries including Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, Niger, Yemen and Uganda. Mercy Corps was the first organization to pilot cash-for-work in Afghanistan and in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. Since July 2016, the organization has distributed over $46 million dollars in cash programming — benefiting more than 173,000 households. In 2017, Mercy Corps connected more than 1 million people to cash during emergencies, infusing more than $46 million into local economies around the world.
Oxfam
When disaster strikes, people living in the affected communities often lose the assets and income they need to keep their families fed, sheltered, and clothed. Distributions of cash can help disaster-affected families meet the complex needs that arise. For Oxfam, it’s a means to empower people and give them some control over their own destiny at a time of great uncertainty. Both in Oxfam’s humanitarian response programs, and in its advocacy to change government policy, cash programming is one of the central ways of supporting food security and livelihoods in an emergency context. Oxfam will continue to promote a “cash first” approach, so long as it is backed up by sufficient analysis of the market, wider context, and utilizes a well-honed information communication technologies capacity – and where it is not appropriate, Oxfam will utilize other modalities, including in-kind support.
World Concern
During the 2011-2012 Horn of Africa famine, World Concern provided families with vouchers for food and other items, but they have since found cash to be more efficient and useful for beneficiaries during a disaster or crisis. The organization is distributing cash grants of approximately $80 to families in Somalia affected by the current drought crisis. Families are using the cash to purchase food and supplies to survive. In addition, in 2016 World Concern provided cash to families in Haiti affected by Hurricane Matthew.
World Vision
Cash-based programming is an increasingly important tool for tackling the underlying causes of poverty. World Vision recognizes that using cash strengthens local markets; restores dignity and choice to people who are in need; and can provide efficient, tailored help to families. In 2016, the World Vision International CEO committed to providing 50% of the organization’s humanitarian assistance through cash by 2020.
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Organization Profile
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – Financial Services for the Poor
By Andie Long
Giggling community members have a bit of fun in line, as they wait to use their Last Mile Mobile Solutions cards to pick up their goods. They are part of a cash-for-work program implemented by World Vision following Typhoon Haiyan in The Philippines. Photo Credit: World Vision
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s mission is to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. One of the most powerful leverage points the foundation has found to increase opportunities for people in the developing world to lift themselves out of poverty is ensuring they have access to the right tools to manage their financial lives.
“Poor people like everyone else have complex financial lives,” said David Lubinski, a senior program officer at the foundation. With the right financial tools, people can securely put away small amounts of money over time to create a cushion for unexpected financial shocks and to invest in growing their income through money-making opportunities.
Increasingly, as the humanitarian community has shifted towards cash, including digital money, as the preferred method for providing aid in emergencies, the foundation, other donors and their partners have been exploring how to turn these digital payments into a gateway to greater financial inclusion for those who have been marginalized or excluded from the financial system.
In early 2016, representatives from more than two dozen organizations, including the humanitarian and financial sectors, as well as funders and other experts, gathered in Barcelona to discuss how to make that dream a reality. Out of the two-day meeting, participants derived eight guiding principles for digital payments in humanitarian response.
With the Barcelona Principles in hand, the foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor and Emergency Response teams reached out to Ericsson, a telecom service provider, to explore possible commercial technology solutions that humanitarian organizations could learn from and possibly use to help deliver on this mission.
Ericsson was already a part of the United Nations’ emergency telecommunications cluster, and well-versed in disaster response. The company also had its own mobile wallet product, and the foundation sought to learn from the humanitarian community what else was missing.
As it turned out, quite a lot.
“When we first started working with Ericsson, what we thought was that the humanitarian organizations just needed a better technology,” Lubinski said. Instead, the four biggest challenges they found had very little to do with technology.
What was most urgently needed by the humanitarian community was a standard and efficient way to legally identify people. Within the financial sector, there’s something called KYC, which stands for “Know Your Customer,” and it enables financial institutions to comply with regulations and laws, not the least of which are anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism. Yet, Lubinski and the broader team working on this found that there were many diverse definitions of what could constitute the “minimum viable KYC.”
But KYC isn’t just a big problem for the humanitarian agencies; it’s also a challenge for the entire financial services ecosystem. At this point, Lubinski and his team posed two questions: Why is KYC different in emergency response than in non-emergency? And should it be?
To get to the bottom of these questions, the foundation became a major funder of Identification for Development. Hosted by The World Bank, ID4D is a group that is looking at how to arrive at a minimum standard data set for the approximately 1.1 billion people in the world who are currently unable to prove their identity, and are therefore excluded from not only financial services, but also healthcare, social safety nets, education, political participation, and more.
A second major challenge for humanitarian organizations wanting to use commercially available mobile wallets in emergency settings is that, in Lubinski’s words, “Sometimes donors ask for silly things – and they cost a lot!”
For example, a donor might stipulate that her funds only go to a particular individual, and only be used for one specific thing – such as food. This type of request might seem reasonable to the donor, because she wants accountability. But should the recipient of those funds be required to juggle multiple digital wallets in order to keep money from different sources separated? And what if there is money left over in one digital wallet, say the food budget, while another category, like medical expenses, is suddenly more urgent? Allowing for the beneficiary to make these decisions on her own is empowering and it reduces the administrative burden of tracking each and every purchase for every account holder.
The last two major barriers to using mobile wallets in emergency settings come down to infrastructure – physical infrastructure and human infrastructure. GSMA, the global mobile network providers association, along with others are looking at ways to improve damaged or insufficient infrastructure after a crisis or natural disaster. Further, The Level One Project at the foundation is taking a broad look at in-country policies and requirements that prevent resilient digital financial ecosystems from taking hold.
Finding ways to improve and expand financial services for the poor is just one of many complex challenges that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken on to alleviate extreme poverty.
“We have co-chairs of the foundation who challenge us to take risks, including taking on these challenges in partnership with the community of humanitarian organizations who respond with frontline services in every disaster,” Lubinski said. “We are not funded by any government so we do not and cannot have a political agenda. That means we have an important role to play in accepting bigger risks and tackling the most pressing challenges facing the people who are most vulnerable – and this includes the two billion people who today do not have access to the basic tools to manage their financial lives.”
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Changemaker
Thea Anderson, Technical Lead for Financial Services in Crisis, Mercy Corps
By Andie Long
Not everyone is comfortable talking about financial services in a humanitarian setting, which may belie our own discomfort with the topic of money. For Thea Anderson, Mercy Corps’ technical lead for financial services in crisis and migration, money itself is an enabler, the thing that holds together any type of successful humanitarian and development response.
“I see financial services as the critical piece for reaching larger development, resilience, and humanitarian goals,” said Anderson.
Over the last 16 years, Anderson has worked in over 40 countries, managing multimillion-dollar financial and market system programs in fragile and complex environments across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Her first exposure to financial services came in 1998, when she began her career at CHF International – now Global Communities.
“They had a huge focus on financial services when I started,” she said. “CHF looked at ways to provide housing finance to people post-disaster, as well as financing to reinforce structures, so they could better withstand future disasters. After a disaster, people can fall into such deep cycles of debt. You need different savings and insurance products to help mitigate that.”
Asked what she likes best about the financial services sector, Anderson said, “I love how dynamic it is. It’s constantly changing with new actors, new technologies, and new research so we can understand what works and what doesn’t.”
Increasingly, Anderson finds herself excited by the role technology can play in increasing access to financial services. Yet she says, “The challenge is making sure it is used to include, rather than exclude people.”
The youngest of three kids growing up in Kentucky, Anderson remembers her family moving around a lot. But it wasn’t until college that she was exposed to life outside the U.S. “It was then that I realized there’s a whole world out there that I wanted to be a part of!”
To succeed in this field, Anderson advises would-be financial services practitioners to cultivate a wide range of technical skills and experiences.
“You need to be open to new technologies and working with people and understanding what their actual needs are and what their lives look like. You also have to be flexible and always wanting to learn, travel, and meet new people. If you stay closed off, the innovation will pass you by.”
When she thinks about how financial services will change within the humanitarian context over the next ten years, Anderson has a few theories. “I see the role of technology growing, especially the use of mobile technology and the potential role of digital ledger technology. Peer to peer financial options are also going to be stronger and more digital based.”
Anderson also sees a huge role for remittances sent from family members working abroad. In Africa alone, over $40 billion is sent and received annually in remittances from diaspora populations.
“Not only do remittances put money directly into people’s pockets, supporting household expenses such as food, education fees, and health costs, but they also enable longer-term investments in housing or businesses,” she said. “There is a huge opportunity to move remittances onto digital channels, reduce transaction costs, and ensure that ‘last mile’ clients can easily send and receive payments.”
Even the United Nations has recognized the need to elevate the focus on remittances. The Sustainable Development Goals push governments and providers to find ways to reduce remittance transaction costs and improve the infrastructure.
Having worked on market development and financial services at Mercy Corps for the last six years, Anderson recently took on a new role: financial services in fragile regions and frontier markets where the agency works. This includes a focus on refugee and internally displaced populations and opportunities to integrate people into local and national economies.
“Fragility is very context specific and within a country there can be separate fragile regions,” said Anderson. This might include countries or regions affected by a rapid-onset disasters (such as natural disasters or conflicts), as well as latent fragility, such as drought-prone areas, and long-simmering conflicts that cross borders. “Households and business owners often face reoccurring shocks and stresses, making it difficult for them to get ahead.”
People’s financial needs are often the same in both fragile and non-fragile areas. However, the challenge is that fragile regions tend to have higher overall operating costs, owing to the unpredictable political environments, poor infrastructure, and greater movements of people.
Mercy Corps has set an ambitious agenda for itself, not only to use digital cash relief in emergency settings to help families and business owners get back on their feet, but also where appropriate, to increase opportunities for them to access formal banking services. Mercy Corps’ relief effort in The Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 is one such example, and it led to the organization being awarded the Global Mobile Award by GSMA in 2015 for “Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations.”
Merly and her husband Niño Francisco check their mobile bank account in North Cebu, Philippines. The couple were part of an unconditional cash mobile transfer program by Mercy Corps, following Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps.
To coordinate these complex responses, Anderson and her team work with people from many different sectors – businesses, donors, foundations, governments and regulatory agencies, even religious institutions.
Cultivating trust among so many different groups can be challenging. “It requires understanding the different incentives behind each of the actors’ interest in financial inclusion,” said Anderson.
But the challenge is worth it.
“As an NGO we can’t do it alone. When we partner with the private sector, we have the potential to reach millions of underserved and underbanked individuals and get them on a pathway to financial inclusion.”
Organizations like Mercy Corps are looking for ways to reduce the potential risk for financial service providers in order for them to consider new clients, such as people in rural communities, or displaced populations, and offer new financial products to meet their needs.
“When companies look at their next billion customers, they will find organizations like Mercy Corps are already there,” said Anderson. “This creates a unique opportunity to build lasting partnerships that strengthen communities and meet commercial needs at the same time.”
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Member Events
Sep 30: Women’s Enterprises International // Harambee Gala
Sep 30: SIGN Fracture Care International // Wine Dine for SIGN
Oct 7 – 15: Ashesi University Foundation // 9th Annual Trip to Ghana
Oct 11: Washington Nonprofits // Effective Online Donation Strategies
Oct 13: International Rescue Committee // Rebuilding Lives Dinner
Oct 26: Sahar: Education for Afghan Girls // Dinner
Oct 28: Mission Africa // 2017 Benefit Luncheon
Oct 28 – Nov 4: Partners Asia // Ultimate Bike Trip to Myanmar
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Career Center
Chief Development Officer, Landesa
Executive Director, Seattle International Foundation
Marketing Associate, Upaya
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/job-board/
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GlobalWA Events
October 26: Inland Northwest Conference for the Greater Good
November 2: Financing Sustainable Agriculture
November 29: GlobalWA Annual Conference – Renewing Global Leadership
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Congressman Adam Smith Meets with the Global Development Community in the State of Washington
Posted on September 20, 2017.
On September 18th, together with Global Washington, Congressman Adam Smith met with about two dozen members of Washington-based non-profits to discuss issues of concern to the global development community. The meeting was held at the offices of World Relief Seattle in Kent, WA.
Congressman Smith represents Washington’s Ninth Congressional District, which comprises the central Puget Sound region, including parts of King and Pierce Counties. Continue Reading
A Conversation with E. Anne Peterson, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President of Global Programs at Americares
Posted on September 14, 2017.
Following is a transcript of Global Washington’s conversation with Anne Peterson. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Integrating Mental Health in Humanitarian Response
Editor’s Note: Americares President and CEO Michael J. Nyenhuis participated in a plenary session at the 2017 Concordia Annual Summit in New York (Sept 18-19), on sustaining health services in insecure settings. One aspect of health that Americares has sought to elevate within the global community is recognition and care for the mental and emotional health of people who have been through traumatic events.
Why do you think that mental health hasn’t been getting the attention it deserves? What are the things that are lacking in a robust response?
At Concordia in New York, we’re going to talk about refugees and their ongoing trauma, especially looking at how you integrate mental health treatment across different kinds of programs. Not only is there a need, but we’re able to measure things that we can do that make a difference.
I think that the health world for a long time only thought about physical health. When I think about my own training as a medical doctor, I only had one class on psychiatry, but nothing really on mental and emotional well-being. I think that the first exposure I had to mental health concerns in a global health setting was around HIV. For the people who received this life-threatening diagnosis, we realized we should be dealing with their emotional health and coping abilities, as well.
There are also child soldiers who need mental health support as they work to reintegrate into their communities. And, of course, in war you see post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and as we started to measure it, we would see the difference it made on overall health outcomes. Slowly the global health community began to move from just seeing their work as preventing death, toward improving people’s lives.
Continue Reading
Fundación MAPFRE Partnership Helps Develop Global Leaders
Posted on September 14, 2017.
Fundación MAPFRE has made an extraordinary gift to support the future leaders of NPH.
September 14, 2017
The Institute’s Class of 2017 – 2018: Ever, Maria, Darich, Darlyn, Farid and Yomara. Credit: NPH
Fundación MAPFRE is proud to announce an exciting partnership with NPH USA by providing more than $93,000 to support the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) Seattle Institute, which develops a future generation of leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Now in its seventh year, NPH’s Seattle Institute offers promising young adults a deep and advanced leadership formation experience in the U.S. Each year six university-aged students from NPH are selected to spend ten months in Seattle, enrolling in a full-time English program and participating in a comprehensive leadership development program. The goal of the program is to train talented youth to maximize their own potential and to serve others in their local communities.
Read more: https://www.nphusa.org/news/fundacion-mapfre/
August 2017 Newsletter
Posted on August 22, 2017.
Welcome to the August 2017 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
IN THIS ISSUE
Letter from our Executive Director
My daughter will be starting kindergarten in the next few weeks and is filled with excitement and curiosity. Education gives kids a chance to understand their place in the universe and how to make sense of the world around them. Research has shown us again and again that making sure young people have access to quality education has a transformative impact on their lives. And ensuring that girls as well as boys have that same opportunity has an even greater impact on the health and prosperity of their communities.
In this month’s issue, we’ve highlighted various Global Washington members that are serious about expanding quality education in developing countries, including the Mona Foundation and Rwanda Girls Initiative, which are sharply focused on empowering young women.
We also explore the way in which the metrics that are chosen impact the success of education programs in developing countries – such as evaluating the quality of the education, rather than just tracking enrollment rates. Many organizations believe that it is not enough just to educate a child if she is not able to make a lasting contribution to her society. Learn more in the articles below about how our members are prioritizing education that addresses the needs of the whole student.
Similarly, a video interview we did with the founder of Ashesi University Foundation, lays out the importance of educating youth to be strong moral leaders, people who set an example for others to follow. We look forward to exploring more with you at our annual conference what it truly means to be a global leader.
Enjoy the last weeks of summer, and I hope to see you all this fall.
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
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Issue Brief
The Transformative Power of Education, Especially for Girls
By Tom Murphy
Photo credit: Rwanda Girls Initiative
How powerful is education? Some 171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if every student in low-income countries finished school with basic reading skills, according to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
It is particularly important for girls. Research shows that an additional year of schooling can raise future wages for a woman by up to 20 percent. Girls who complete primary education are less likely to become teen mothers. Nearly 200,000 maternal deaths could be avoided if all girls completed primary education, according to one study. Other benefits include fewer child marriages, lower rates of HIV/AIDS and gains in gender equity.
“I have travelled the world and met people in many countries,” Malala Yousafzai said to the Canadian Parliament in April.
“I’ve seen firsthand many of the problems we are facing today — war, economic instability, climate change and health crises. And I can tell you that the answer is girls. Secondary education for girls can transform communities, countries and our world.”
The problem is that too many children are not going to school. More than 264 million children around the world are out of school – 130 million are girls. They range from the Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, to the children of subsistence farmers in rural Rwanda.
The good news is that more children go to school today that at any point in human history. The number of children not attending primary school fell by half between 2000 and 2013, despite a growing global population. It is an impressive feat.
But more money is needed if the world wants to achieve the goal of providing quality pre-primary, primary and secondary education to every child by 2030. Current spending falls short by $39 billion per year, according to the Global Partnership for Education. The group provides assistance to the countries with the greatest number of children out of school and is trying to increase its annual spending to $2 billion a year – still a fraction of the total needed to achieve universal education.
There is also more work to be done to ensure children not only go to school, but they learn while in the classroom. Students in some countries graduate primary school unable to read simple text nor perform basic arithmetic. Harvard University research Lant Pritchett has tracked the problem for years and even wrote a book on the problem.
“Schooling, however, is not the same as education,” Pritchett says. “Few of these billion students will receive an education that adequately equips them for their future. The poor quality of education worldwide constitutes a learning crisis.”
One major problem is the priority placed on getting children into the classroom. The Millennium Development Goals, a set of global goals aimed at reducing problems associated with poverty, only called for increases in enrollment. The newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals address the problem by including targets aimed at addressing problems like teacher quality and increased access to vocational training. They also emphasize the importance of girls’ education, namely calling for the elimination of gender disparities in education by 2030.
There is still a lot at stake when it comes to global education. It is hard to overstate the power of education in reducing poverty and inequity. Education can do many things beyond basic learning. For example, it helps lower youth unemployment and it can reduce discrimination against indigenous children.
Education alone cannot solve all of the world’s problems, but it is a crucial part to the wider solution.
“If we want to reduce armed conflict and stem irregular migration flows, equitable access to quality education is essential,” Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Minister and Chair of the Global Partnership for Education said in May.
“Quality education for all matters whether you are a business leader searching for talent, a security analyst fretting over the risk of conflict, a voter who worries about rising numbers of asylum seekers, or a feminist who admires Malala’s courage. I am convinced that people everywhere are able to embrace the education agenda.”
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Many Global Washington members are working toward improving education for young people, especially girls and young women, around the world.
Ashesi University Foundation
Ashesi University Foundation mobilizes support for Ashesi University in Ghana. Ashesi’s mission is to educate a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders in Africa and cultivate within its students the critical thinking skills, concern for others and courage it will take to transform their continent. Founded in 2002 by Ghanaian Patrick Awuah, Ashesi offers majors in Computer Science, Business Administration, MIS, and Engineering, all grounded in a liberal arts core curriculum. Ashesi plans to broaden its impact by growing to 1,000 students by 2020 and adding new programs, while maintaining their strong culture of ethics and critical thinking. Ashesi is seeking partners to continue to expand their impact in Africa.
Bo M. Karlsson Foundation
Founded in 2004, the Bo M. Karlsson Foundation (BMKF) awards higher education scholarships to underprivileged women in Nepal, empowering them to become confident, self-reliant, vital citizens in their communities and country. Over the past decade, BMKF has awarded scholarships to 45 young women who have gone on to pursue careers in accounting, business management, engineering, journalism, law, medicine, nursing, public health, rural development, social work and teaching — futures that were hopelessly out of reach before receiving scholarships to pursue their undergraduate degrees. As the majority of BMKF scholars come from remote villages, most of them are the first in their families to receive any education. Several scholars have a physical disability, belong to marginalized castes or ethnic groups, or have experienced harrowing civil war and human trafficking situations. All share a passion for education. BMKF is committed to helping them succeed.
Kobi Academy
Kobi Academy’s mission is to provide exceptional education that empowers children in Ethiopia to be creative, achievement oriented, compassionate citizens committed to life-long learning and community stewardship.
Mission Africa
Mission Africa believes that education is the key to ending generational poverty and that investment in education can have a profound impact on communities. Many African countries do not offer free education and Mission Africa is dedicated to ensuring that all children regardless of their income level have access to quality education. In the past ten years, Mission Africa’s academic scholarship program has awarded 795 scholarships and has allowed more than 300 students in rural villages in Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Togo, Rwanda and Uganda to graduate high school and continue on to college or vocational training. Mission Africa has also shipped 10 40-foot containers filled with books and school supplies to children and families in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania.
Mona Foundation
Since its founding in 1999, Mona Foundation has had a simple but compelling goal — to support grassroots educational initiatives that build stronger and sustainable communities by raising the status of women and girls. Mona achieves this by partnering with local organizations and investing in the education of children and youth and women. Mona selects initiatives that are initiated and implemented by the local community and have a proven record of success. A long-term partnership enables sustained social and economic development activities, which often leads to an increase in reach, greater efficacy of programs, and an expanded ability to address complex problems. Mona partners with organizations that work to reduce the barriers to education, improve quality of learning and cultivate agency among girls and boys. Programs use an integrated approach to develop academic skills, and creative and moral capabilities of their participants and transform individuals to become agents of change in service to their families and communities. As a result, young people gain competency, agency, integrity and a commitment to building socially just communities. Mona Foundation has awarded more than $10 million in support to 35 initiatives in 18 countries, providing access to quality education and training for more than 246,000 students, teachers and parents annually. For 2016 Mona supported partner organizations in the U.S., Haiti, Panama, Brazil, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, and India.
NPH USA
NPH USA supports Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (Spanish for “Our Little Brothers and Sisters”) which is raising more than 3,400 orphaned, abandoned and disadvantaged boys and girls in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. NPH believes that a quality education is the key to a better life. Many children arrive at NPH with little or no formal schooling. Each child is given a strong foundation of basic academic and interpersonal skills and provided with an extensive variety of educational opportunities. Nearly all of NPH homes feature on-site schools from Montessori preschool through middle or high school, as well as vocational trade certification courses. In 2015, NPH supported 369 students in university – the most in the organization’s history. Children grow up to become accountants, carpenters, doctors, farmers, mechanic, nurses, teachers and community leaders. An additional 2,100 children who live in low income areas outside the homes receive scholarships to attend NPH schools. Click here to see stories of nine children who are learning in different ways at NPH.
Rwanda Girls Initiative
Rwanda Girls Initiative’s mission is to educate and empower girls in Rwanda to reach their highest potential. The organization’s vision is for students to graduate as inspired young leaders, filled with confidence, a love of learning and a sense of economic empowerment to strengthen their communities and foster Rwanda’s growth. The Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology (GGAST) is an innovative and socio-economically diverse model upper-secondary STEM school designed to provide a “whole girl” education. GGAST provides a rigorous college prep academic program, combined with leadership training and extra-curricular activities that fills girls with confidence so they can pursue their dreams of university education and impactful vocations. Since opening GGAST’s doors in January 2011, Rwanda Girls Initiative has educated 270 girls each year with a 93 percent matriculation rate to universities in 16 countries, including 153 in the U.S. and Canada with over $30 million in scholarships. Educate a girl. Inspire a community. Transform a nation.
Sahar Education International
Sahar provides access to education in Afghanistan and supports an educated future for Afghan girls, enabling them to actively participate in social, political and economic arenas in their communities. Sahar builds schools, computer centers and teacher training programs utilizing local labor and community support. Since 2009, Sahar has invested over $2 million in building, repairing and supplying schools in Afghanistan, a country in which 45 percent of schools operate without adequate buildings. Sahar operates 13 schools, 9 rural and 4 urban, and 87 classrooms have been built or renovated. Sahar impacts 20,000 girls annually and serves girls from Uzbek, Tajik, Pashto and Hazar ethnic groups. In total, Sahar’s programs have impacted more than 200,000 girls.
Schools for Salone
Schools for Salone partners with local villages in Sierra Leone, West Africa, to rebuild the schools devastated in the ten-year civil war that ended in 2002. The organization has built 16 schools and two libraries since 2005.
SE Asia Foundation
SE Asia Foundation emphasizes education for girls, provides hands-on coaching for sustainability, and complies with the Istanbul Principles, ensuring religious inclusion. In Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand, the Foundation supports girls’ education from preschool to university.
The Rose International Fund for Children
The Rose International Fund for Children (TRIFC) is transforming education for blind students in Nepal. Being a blind or visually-impaired student in a developing country is an incredible challenge. There are no areas of these student’s educational and personal needs that are properly covered with the limited funding provided by the Nepal government. Add to that the societal stigma attached to having a disability, where one is considered to be cursed or suffering from a past-life sin and the result is a neglected, marginalized group with a devastating loss of human potential. TRIFC is working to solve this problem through an innovative, holistic program which addresses all areas of need and provides students with the necessary tools to be successful in school and in life. TRIFC is working to enhance personal and educational support in the areas of health, hygiene, nutrition, school tools for the blind, daily-living skills and more.
West African Vocational Schools
West African Vocational Schools’ (WAVS) mission is to create hope and opportunity in West African communities by working hand-in-hand with indigenous leaders to establish vocational training centers and economic development programs, while sharing the Gospel message.
World Bicycle Relief
In rural developing countries, the biggest barrier to education is often the physical act of getting to school. Tasked with many more domestic chores than boys, girls fall behind because of the cultural obstacles they face. In many of the areas where World Bicycle Relief works, it is common for girls to arrive at school late and tired if they arrive at all. By providing bicycles to children, especially girls, they empower girls with knowledge and ultimately, change the course of their lives. Keeping girls in school has been shown to have a multiplier effect that can help break the cycle of poverty.
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Featured Organization
Rwanda Girls Initiative
By Tom Murphy
The Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, located in the East African country of Rwanda, provides girls the opportunity to access a world class secondary school education regardless of their family income. The school and additional support provided to the girls is the result of the Rwanda Girls Initiative (RGI), based in Kirkland, Washington.
Photo credit: Rwanda Girls Initiative
“We met so many girls who desperately wanted to continue their schooling, but the opportunities were very limited,” Shalisan Foster said. “Even the girls who did continue to secondary school were burdened by household chores and safety concerns – so they tended to drop out at a higher rate than the boys.”
Foster and Suzanne Sinegal McGill founded RGI in 2008 as the result of consultations with people living throughout Rwanda. Construction started soon after on a community center which opened in 2010 and the school opened in January 2011. Today, some 270 girls attend the school annually and there are already graduates attending universities across the world, including at least one student attending every Ivy League school.
The boarding school is more than just a center for learning. RGI takes a “whole girl” approach – providing support for the girls’ health and social development. The school offers extracurricular and leadership programs to further its broader goals, and the girls who graduate are prepared for life beyond the classroom.
“It is easy to fall in love with the school based on girls’ empowerment, educating girls in Africa and more,” Hillary Carey, Chief Business Officer at RGI said “But learning more about the country and history and the true intentions of RGI captured my heart.”
Rwanda is still rebuilding in the wake of its 1994 genocide that nearly 1 million people killed in 100 days. It was the result of ethnic divides created by Belgium in the early 20th century when it controlled the country. An additional 2 million people fled the country as refugees, an event that transformed an entire generation. It left a post-colonial independent country that was already struggling with high rates of poverty in an even worse position.
Despite the challenge, the country made remarkable gains in reducing poverty and improving health in the more than two decades since the genocide. It is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies over the past decade. It is also one of a few countries in the world where women make up more than half of the parliament. What’s more, it cut extreme poverty from 77 percent of the country in 2000, to 10 percent today.
However, the gains lag in some areas – notably secondary education. More than 95 percent of Rwandan children go to primary school, up from 78 percent in 1999. Yet, the figures drop off significantly for secondary school, with only 27 percent of age eligible students enrolled.
The rates are even lower for girls and fall further when they are from rural areas of the country. In the end, only eight percent of Rwandan girls graduate from secondary school. RGI’s school seeks to address that problem. But graduating more girls is not enough. By focusing on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) they hope to nurture the next generation of scientists, social entrepreneurs, advocates and thought leaders in Rwanda.
Photo credit: Rwanda Girls Initiative
Student composition is another important part of RGI. The organization boasts the most socio-economically diverse school in Rwanda. The student body is currently made up of girls from 27 of Rwanda’s 30 districts, as well as girls from neighboring Burundi and Somaliland. The diversity is an intentional decision that aims to fulfill RGI’s goal of empowering the next generation of leaders.
Motivating the girls turned out not to be difficult. Students are up at 5 AM studying before classes each day, Carey said. In fact, the school has to enforce a strict lights-out policy at 10 PM because many of the girls are still up doing school work. In one case, a girl contracted malaria shortly before the important national exams – a test necessary for graduation and university placement. She did not let the parasite get in her way and still took the test.
“They are warriors in that way,” Carey said. “They won’t let things get in their way or get them down.”
RGI now looks to the future. The start-up phase that lasted since its founding is ending and programming is underway that will focus on longer term goals. These include thinking about how to continue support for the girls when they finish school. And there is an effort to transition to local governance of the school on the ground, another example of the drive to ensure that the program is accountable to the community.
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Changemaker
Mahnaz Javid, Mona Foundation
By Tom Murphy
Selfie on the Amazon river in Brazil. Photo credit: Mahnaz Javid
It does not take long into a conversation with Mahnaz Javid for her personal ethos to emerge.
“We have a lot more in common than our differences, and the more we recognize it, the more we can come together as one people to build a better world for all of our children” she says.
Javid is driven to make a difference in her community. She founded the Mona Foundation two decades ago, believing that “there is no such thing as self-development. Self-development happens only in service to others.”
The idea for the foundation came together on the back of a napkin over lunch with two friends at a social and economic development conference in Orlando in 1998. Javid saw that it was possible to make a real difference in the lives of many with just a little help and resources – especially when it came to education of children and the empowerment of girls.
“Development data shows that education and gender equality are top two pre-requisites to alleviating global poverty,” she said.
Mona Foundation supports grassroots educational initiatives that provide education to all children, increase opportunities for women and girls, and emphasize service to the community. Their goal is to alleviate global poverty and support community-led transformation such that no child ever goes to bed hungry, or is lost to preventable diseases, or is deprived of the gift of education for lack of resources.
Mahnaz with teachers from the Association for Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM). Started in 1985 as a small orphanage, ADCAM today is a nationally-recognized institution, which offers K-12, a technical college, vocational training, a family development center and rural education programs serving over 1,000 students, and 4,400 youth, families and elderly a day. Photo credit: Mahnaz Javid.
Mona Foundation believes that the keys to alleviating poverty are universal education, gender equality, and community building. The Foundation also believes that each person, regardless of economic status, has the right, the capacity and the responsibility to be the protagonist of the process of their own development, and contribute to the betterment of their communities.
“Social change is not a project that one group of people carries out for the benefit of another. Change can only emerge from within a community and belongs to the people and institutions that are implementing the effort,” Javid says. “Education is the light that you turn on in a dark room. It lets you see, removes prejudices and darkness, and gives you the freedom to choose your path forward to be better and give back to your community.”
While the basis for the foundation was sketched out in 1998, the ideas driving Javid were formed at a young age. She grew up in Iran with parents who were always willing to help others. Her father, a physician, dedicated himself to treating the poor. And her mother was so benevolent that she gave more to other people than to her own children, Javid joked.
She also saw the poverty and challenges faced by others in her native land and as she travelled around the world. “A mother is a mother, is a mother. We all love our children, we all want the best for our kids, and none of us wants to see our kids go to bed hungry or sick because we cannot afford healthcare.” The thought of Mona Foundation started to take shape as she pursued her PhD and her advisor encouraged her to write her dissertation about her passion.
“I thought the one thing I was willing to do without pay and do it my whole life was to give back to other people,” she explained.
The Mona Foundation is the embodiment of that passion. Since 1999, it has provided $10 million in support to 35 projects in 18 countries, impacting the lives of thousands. Programs include direct school support for communities in Brazil along the Amazon River, education and skills training for girls in India, assistance to schools in Haiti and more.
Mona Foundation’s focus is more than just providing access to academic education, Javid explained. Mona supports educational programs that offer holistic education to develop academic, creative and moral capabilities of their students and transform individuals to become agents of change in service to their families and communities.
“Giving and caring is intrinsic to our humanity. It defines who we are as a people and helps us to be the best we can be. So, education should help us do great academically – be mathematicians, scientists, doctors, teachers – but it also should give us the skills and capabilities we need to participate in the betterment of our communities. Without giving back and service to the community, we cannot be whole, and nothing will ever change for the better around us,” Javid says.
Mahnaz with students at the Association for Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM). Photo credit: Mahnaz Javid.
Visible change happens in all the projects that Mona supports because the foundation identifies promising local educational initiatives at the grassroots and accompanies them long-term to help them put their plans into action. The effect of this strategy of long-term partnership has been dramatic. Several of their partner projects have been built from quite humble beginnings to full-fledged, effective, and well-recognized educational institutions, serving thousands of students, teachers and parents.
More than 1,300 teachers in Mongolia were trained, thanks to the foundation. It supports the Mongolian Development Center, a preschool program with more than 40 schools serving 7,500 students across the country. The schools believe that children learn best through the modeling of their parents, so it provides services that help all adults in a child’s life support the learning process.
“Every person regardless of who they are has the capacity, right and responsibility to give back to write their own future – it is not our role as the funding agency to tell others how to do it.”
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Welcome New Members
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Forum One
Forum One is a full service agency that works with mission-driven organizations to create the stunning designs, smart messaging, and custom-built technology tools they need to realize their goals and change the world. forumone.com
Street Business School by BeadforLife
Street Business School creates transformation for people living in poverty through building confidence and igniting entrepreneurial skills. For more than a decade, we’ve empowered Ugandan women to discover their own entrepreneurial potential and leave poverty behind. Today, we’re scaling to ignite potential in 1 million women around the world by 2027. www.beadforlife.org/streetbusinessschool
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Member Events
Aug 17: Days for Girls // Bee Her Hero Charity Event
Aug 26: Days for Girls // Girls Soar
Sep 9: Extend the Day // Lights for Learning
Sep 23: Spreeha // Journey of Hope Dinner and Fundraiser
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Career Center
Community Events Coordinator, World Affairs Council
Partnership Development, PotaVida
Head of Marketing Strategy, PATH
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/job-board/
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GlobalWA Events
August 24: Happy Hour with Friends of GlobalWA and World Affairs Council
September 8: Voices from the Field: ACT for Congo
November 29: GlobalWA Annual Conference – Renewing Global Leadership
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Martha Brady, Director, Reproductive Health, PATH
Posted on August 18, 2017.
Interviewed July 26, 2017
By Andie Long
Martha Brady, Director, Reproductive Health, PATH. Photo Credit: David Alexander/FP Voices
Martha Brady, the Director of Reproductive Health at PATH, a Seattle-based international health nonprofit, recently returned from the Family Planning Summit 2017 in London.
The summit was co-hosted by the UK Department for International Development, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) and in close partnership with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Global Affairs Canada.
There were a number of new family planning commitments made at the meeting, including the announcement by Melinda Gates that the foundation would commit an additional $375 million over four years, a 60% increase in its family planning funding. PATH also revitalized its commitments from the previous summit, dedicating $10 million dollars over three years to “expand the contraceptive method mix in up to 12 countries by 2020.” New commitments were also made by Global Washington members Americares and International Rescue Committee. Continue Reading
World Vision, Save the Children chiefs: Let’s press pause on our national bickering and save lives together
Posted on August 2, 2017.
By Richard Stearns, Carolyn Miles
In this era of harsh political divisions and fake news, disagreement seems to be at an all-time high and it can be easy to overlook some of the world’s most pressing conflicts. Right now, people in parts of Africa and Yemen are suffering from a massive hunger crisis and yet most Americans are totally unaware of it. The statistics are staggering: 20 million people are at risk of famine, 600,000 children are at risk of death before Thanksgiving and the United Nations is calling this the worst humanitarian emergency since World War II.
America has a tradition of helping those who need it most. Absent any divisiveness, the bright side is that here is finally an issue on which we can all agree – and a problem we can constructively address. Americans can come together on preventing cataclysmic starvation in the developing world.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/07/28/world-vision-save-children-chiefs-lets-press-pause-on-our-national-bickering-and-save-lives-together.html
We’ve Made Great Strides in the Fight Against Global Hunger. So Why Are Millions at Risk of Starvation?
07/25/2017
By Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps, and Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America
More people around the world are escaping extreme poverty than ever before. In just 10 years, 167 million fewer people are undernourished. But we cannot let another day go by without acknowledging that millions more children, men and women are currently at risk of starvation, and this progress is in danger of being reversed. Knowledge is power, as the old adage goes, and we are convinced that if more Americans know about this crisis we can save more lives.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59778524e4b0940189700d17
Careers in International Development
By Riya Mehta, Stanford in Government Fellow at Landesa
Panel on Careers in International Development (Photo: Colleen O’Holleran / Landesa)
On June 19, 2017, Global Washington partnered with Landesa to lead a panel discussion on careers in international development for the third year in a row. The event provided an opportunity for students and experienced professionals alike to learn more about Washington’s international development community and the best ways to navigate the international non-profit sector.
The event was moderated by Melissa Merritt, Vice President of Executive Search practice at Waldron, a Seattle-based consulting organization. Panelists included Jodi-Ann Burey, Andie Long, and Heidi Peterson, three professionals who all work for Seattle-based international development organizations. Burey is a Health Systems Associate at VillageReach; Peterson is the Executive Director at Mobility Outreach International; and Long currently serves as the Director of Marketing and Communications for Global Washington.
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Mercy Corps Tells Congress Urgent Action Is Needed In Four Famine-Threatened Countries
South Sudan Country Director Deepmala Mahla Testifies Before Senate Panel
WASHINGTON, DC – With an estimated 81 million people in need of emergency assistance because of severe food insecurity, Congress must act now to prevent famine and save lives, urges Deepmala Mahla, South Sudan Country Director for the global organization Mercy Corps. In testimony to a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on the matter, Mahla proposes Congress enact new policies in three areas: funding, diplomacy, and resilience and peacebuilding.
Mahla’s appearance comes as Mercy Corps and seven other leading U.S.-based relief organizations launch the Global Emergency Response Coalition, the first-of-its-kind U.S. humanitarian alliance, formed to raise awareness and funds to address needs in 10 famine-threatened countries.
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