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Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.
Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.
You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.
If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.
Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.
Posted on July 1, 2024
By Tracey Compton, Senior Media and Communications Coordinator
Image created by GlobalWA with OpenArt.ai
The coming “youthquake” in Africa is well-documented. Reports indicate Africa will account for two out of every five children born on the planet. According to The New York Times analysis of UN World Population Prospects, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce, surpassing China and India within the next decade – yet there remains a lagging focus on job creation on the continent. Historically, employment programming has focused on job skills training or seed money to start businesses. But what can you do when there aren’t enough jobs for the growing population and training more people only creates a larger pool of higher-skilled unemployed people?
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Posted on July 1, 2024
Republished with permission from Future of Fish
Future of Fish and partners are excited to announce their collaboration with Caja Sullana to launch the Artisanal Fisher Development Fund (the Fund), a pilot loan guarantee fund to facilitate access to credit to support formalization, sustainable practices and financial inclusion amongst Peru´s artisanal fishing sector.
The Fund aims to facilitate access to credit for working capital loans through aggregated purchase programs of Coops for inputs such as gas, ice, oil, and other fishing essentials the savings of which will be passed on to fisher members supporting reduced operational costs and increased profit margins. Presently, some Coops are mobilizing members’ monthly contributions to purchase inputs like oil and giant squid fishing jigs. Loans from Caja Sullana, and other financial institutions, will complement these efforts with the aim of providing a wider range of inputs to fishers at more competitive prices. Working with Coops enables financial institutions to reach a vast number of fishers while reducing origination costs and mitigating individual risks. By the same token, strengthening artisanal fishers’ Coops increases their agency and governance capacity thus enhancing their ability to make sound business decisions that support responsible fishing and local socio economic development. Aggregated purchase services provided by Coops increase members’ loyalty and incentivize them to continue contributing to growing the members’ fund thus creating a virtuous circle of Coop capitalization and reduced dependence on external sources of finance.
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Posted on June 25, 2024
Republished with permission from Future of Fish
Future of Fish is excited to announce the launch of the Artisanal Fisher Development Fund (the Fund), a pilot loan guarantee fund to facilitate access to credit to support formalization, sustainable practices and financial inclusion amongst Peru´s artisanal fishing sector .
The informal economy in Peru is estimated to make up more than 40% of the country’s GDP and its presence is widespread amongst artisanal fisheries. As in many communities dependent on wild capture fisheries, this lack of formality prevents most fishers, vessel owners, and coops/associations from accessing the formal market and necessary financing to improve their businesses. Many of these fishers instead are reliant on informal money lenders who lock them into “debt-trap” conditions which, in turn, perpetuates the need to fish more to pay off their debts – thus exacerbating overfishing and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU). This dependency means that breaking off existing relationships with informal lenders to pursue new, formal financing sources can present significant risks to fishers. Compounding this risk, even when choosing a path to formalization, a newly formalized business will not be able to access formal credit due to their lack of commercial track record, credit history and adequate collateral. Given these challenges, transitioning from the informal to formal economy presents significant risks that many are unable or fearful to take given the risks to the activities that support their livelihoods.
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