Meet 11 exciting innovators from around the world who will attend next week’s Social Capital Markets Conference in San Francisco with a delegation from the U.S. Global Development Lab. Joining 2000 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and investors, these innovators will seek to connect with impact investors and take their game-changing ideas to the next level.
Earlier this month, the New York Times published an op-ed arguing persuasively that scientific and technological progress is the key to African development. We are pleased to say that this vision is one that USAID fully supports and has already taken significant steps to catalyze. Today, Africans are the architects of their development, not just beneficiaries.
Today is World Humanitarian Day, a day to commemorate the fallen relief workers who died in the 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, as well as the thousands of others who have given their lives to help those in need. Last year marked the most violent year for aid organizations in the past decade: 155 relief staff were killed, 168 were injured, and 132 were kidnapped. This is always a sobering day, but is all the more so this year as we mourn the six aid workers just recently murdered in South Sudan and the many health care staff in West Africa who have sacrificed their lives treating those with Ebola.
From Mount Sinjar in Iraq to vulnerable communities in South Sudan; battling Ebola in West Africa, and in the refugee camps on the Syrian border: This is the first time in our Agency’s history that we have been called on to manage four large-scale humanitarian responses at once—in addition to reaching other vulnerable populations worldwide and preparing communities ahead of natural disasters. We are not working alone. We are grateful to our U.N., NGO, and local partners, who have demonstrated exceptional fortitude and compassion in the face of relentless tragedy.
It’s been a year since Nimna Diayte met President Obama in Senegal when he stopped by for a chat at her booth at the Feed the Future Agricultural Technology Marketplace. The president was impressed by Nimna’s can-do attitude and the way she had become a community leader and entrepreneur. Nimna made quite the impression! In fact, President Obama even mentioned her last week during a discussion at the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in Washington, DC.
