International Economic Development

Welcome to our International Economic Development focus area. In this area we are currently working to produce several products such as investment guides, promising models in practice, and online resources such as subscriptions to International Issues and our High Impact Philanthropy Blog.

You can download all of our products for free by visiting Investment Analysis. See below for an overview of our work to-date.

Haiti: Livelihoods

Haiti: How Can I Help? Models for Donors Seeking Long-Term Impact (April 2010)

opportunity 2: enabling households to provide for themselves

Job creation will be central to enabling Haitian households to move beyond the earthquake’s devastation. However, given Haiti’s extreme poverty, level of unemployment, widespread deforestation and environmental degradation before the earthquake hit, any promising model will need to consider two factors: 1) asset-building for those who have nothing, and 2) environmentally sustainable agriculture.

The recent earthquake destabilized the lives of hundreds of thousands of urban residents, and a great many have migrated to rural areas in search of new livelihoods. This ‘reverse migration’ has decreased food security, added stress to the rural economy which will have to absorb new labor, and will force migrants to learn relevant rural skills.

Further, the earthquake has disrupted jobs, and as people earn less, they tend to buy less, contracting the local economy. Read more...