Archives: Blogs
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Women nourishing citizens’ diets
Women influence what families eat and for generations have undisputedly ensured that members of their households are fed and healthy. The confines of this significant role have however traversed household boundaries to the market place as food vendors. This includes street and market vending of fruits, vegetables, ready cooked foods and related products. The current…
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The role of media in accelerating renewable energy adoption
Hivos’ Green and Inclusive Energy program (GIE) in partnership with Nukta Africa and Journalists for Environment (JET) are currently running a six-month Renewable Energy Journalism Fellowship (REJF) in Tanzania. This is the second cohort of journalists undergoing the fellowship which is expected to improve the overall quality and quantity of reporting renewable energy news. GIE…
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Advancing nutrition outcomes through agriculture
Agriculture remains an important sector to Kenya’s development and key to creating equitable and sustainable growth. In addition to contributing to economic growth, agriculture creates jobs for rural communities and is essential to satisfying the food and nutritional needs for all. The importance of the sector is underscored in the Vision 2030 and the President’s…
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Día mundial de la energía: una joya iluminada
Hace unos meses nos dimos la tarea de ir a (re)conocer algunos proyectos de energía renovable que Hivos apoyó años atrás. Para lograrlo era necesario salir un poco de la ciudad y adentrarnos en las zonas más alejadas de las urbes centroamericanas. Fue así como Gabriela Melgar (oficial de comunicación de Hivos), Karlo Morales (productor…
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Demystifying myths against open contracting
Contestation against the adoption of the open contracting approach in government have revolved around national security concerns in the procurement of military equipment citing ‘the contravention of confidentiality clauses and privacy rights’. In various jurisdictions these arguments for blanket non- disclosure have been discredited. National security interests and the opening up of defense contracts continues…
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Cities, climate change and the food system of the majority
The 10th session of the World Urban Forum is underway, where innovative approaches to sustainable urbanization are showing how we can achieve inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities. RUAF partners, including Hivos and FAO, are there to present ways of planning food systems in urban and peri-urban areas that emphasize systemic thinking and the importance…
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Invest in culture shifts, not transparency
Change sometimes is in the hardware – it’s in the structures, frameworks and institutions. And we tend to focus largely on these shifts, so that culture shifts in good governance can go unrecognized, unnoticed. In Kenya, meaningful proactive disclosure of information is not only a constitutional aspiration; it’s also the dream for any access to…
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Gaby Castillo pone en el escenario a personas LGBT+ en Guatemala
Las personas LGBT+ juegan un papel muy pequeño en la televisión y en otros medios de comunicación en Guatemala. Gaby Castillo decidió cambiar eso y filmó dos cortometrajes con la comunidad LGBT+. Su misión es hacer que la comunidad sea visible y mostrar el talento creativo que tiene. Gaby Castillo es la primera mujer trans…
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Youth taking on the food system in Africa
Not only are youth our future leaders, they often unleash an enthusiasm that gives new life to movements and they have a vision that creates significant change. This was exactly the kind of energy that we experienced in Nakuru, Kenya earlier this month, where the Sustainable Diets for All (SD4All) program, together with Indigenous Terra…
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Illuminating the dark public contracting tunnel
Governments can easily win or lose citizens trust and confidence depending on the consistency of public service delivery. This entails timely available, accessible, appropriate and acceptable delivery of public services, goods and works. Promises of public service delivery are mostly captured in election promises popularly called the social contract between citizens and their national or…
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Hivos re-affirms its commitment to Open Contracting in Africa
The last week of November 2019 marked a major convening for the Open Contracting movement in Africa. The Local Open Contracting Initiative (LOCI) was held for the first time on 26 November 2019 along the side lines of the East Africa Procurement Forum in Arusha, Tanzania. LOCI is an initiative that fosters, ideas and linking…
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Saved seeds are seeds of resilience
Why we’re helping farmers protect their seeds from private control People have a right to define their own food system. This includes which seeds they use. Last week, farmers in Nakuru County, Kenya, celebrated the launch of “Ten rich, underutilized crops,” a publication and documentary that capture their efforts to promote and sustain the varieties…