Post Tagged with: "us"

Breaking gender barriers in Jordan

My latest video for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US international aid agency , tells the story of Ra’eda, who is one of the first female plumbers in Jordan. Here Ra’eda explains how she went from being ridiculed for her chosen profession to becoming an in-demand professional.

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Change in the Air

I feel like I’m getting spoiled taking all these helicopter rides. Aerial footage is definitely worth the effort if you can take the wind burn and the pilot’s bill that comes along with it. Drones work well too, yes – just not when you have 200 square kilometers to cover. Here I document the Millennium Challenge Corporation‘s Senegal Compact, which has rehabilitated highways and markets in the north and south and brought renewed farming abilities to the Senegal River Valley through an irrigation infrastructure overhaul. MCC is a foreign aid agency established by the US Congress that applies new philosophies to the implementation of development assistance with the aim of increasing economic growth. Rogue states and kleptocracies need not apply. Countries must pass a number of indicators including control of corruption, civil liberties, and trade policy to be eligible for a compact. Senegal, being one of Africa’s most stable democracies, had[…]

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Back to the Farm

Get this: 80% of Burkina Faso’s population attempts to make it’s living in subsistence agriculture while only 19% of land is arable.  That makes farming kind of like a guy getting a date in a country where men outnumber women four to one.  Poor soil qualities, fluctuations in rainfall, and topsoil erosion all contribute to the country’s crop production woes.  Recent work is displayed here from the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s agricultural programs in Burkina Faso. MCC, a humanitarian arm of the US State Department, is boosting production and access to markets for small farmers in this West African country, however.  The programs shown here document the organization’s efforts in sustainable agriculture, livestock vaccination, fertilizers, and agro-forestry, as well as ground-breaking, innovative initiatives.  In the Market Information Systems program, agents use cell phone technology to publish regional market prices for a variety of commodities.  Farmers who subscribe to the database can[…]

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