Activity Description:

Multi-M is a pharmaceutical company distributing high quality generic drugs at affordable prices and currently operating in Africa. Operation began in Mali at the end of 1998 and by 2003 had expanded to Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Niger, with five warehouse locations serving over one thousand customers.

Products cover the entire pharmacological range and include all presentation forms: tablets, capsules, dry suspensions, syrups, solutions, ampoules, vials, IV-solutions, bags, crèmes, ointments, eye drops and lozenges. The medicines are tested by an independent Swiss laboratory. Due to poor transportation infrastructure, Multi-M often arranges distribution by its own means.

Activity Description:

In 1997, the NEF began working with 7 villages in Northern Morocco to promote female education and leadership by organizing local literacy initiatives and associating groups of rural women leaders.

The program has since expanded to 15 villages, and in collaboration with the U.S. State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), NEF seeks to establish income-generating projects with one or more parent-teacher associations (PTAs) within these communities.

Activity Description: The Near East Foundation is committed to helping the people of the Middle East and Africa build the future they envision for themselves. NEF builds the capabilities of people and community organizations at the grassroots so they can use their own assets in solving problems and creating opportunities which they have identified. Consequently, NEF becomes involved only in projects that are potentially self-sustaining.

Activity Description:

This seven-year project is being implemented in the recently reclaimed desert lands between the Suez Canal and the Nile Delta that are irrigated by the Al Salam Canal. The main objective is to support the settlement and agricultural production of about 26,000 families. Project initiatives include: building tertiary irrigation and drainage systems; providing safe drinking water to needy communities; supporting credit banks in extending their operations to the area; and establishing community organizations that can participate in management of the irrigation system.

Activity Description:

The International Youth Foundation (IYF) works in nearly 70 countries and territories to improve the conditions and prospects for young people where they live, learn, work, and play. Established in 1990 to bring worldwide resources to young people in need, IYF works with hundreds of companies, foundations, and civil society organizations to strengthen and "scale up" existing programs that are making a positive and lasting difference in young lives. Over the last 15 years, IYF and its global network of in-country partners have helped millions of young people gain access to the life skills, education, job training and opportunities critical to their success.

Activity Description: Small-scale economic initiatives may be the most promising option for job-seeking youth in the West Bank, where estimates of the unemployment rate range from 25 to 30 percent. And olive trees, an icon of the region, could provide the perfect products. The Palestinian territories are home to the equivalent of 200,000 football fields worth of olive trees, which provide fruits, cooking oil, moisturizing soap and wood for traditional carvings.

Activity Description: The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) is an independent, non-profit organization that assists developing countries to realise locally-owned, sustainable development, by harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs). IICD works with its partner organisations in (currently nine) selected countries, helping local stakeholders to assess the potential uses of ICTs in development.

Activity Description: Maternal mortality is responsible for over 500,000 deaths globally every year. Obstetric hemorrhage contributes to the greatest proportion of maternal deaths and, in developing regions of the world, women die because there are often long delays between the occurrence of hemorrhage and treatment.

Funded by a MacArthur Foundation grant, the Women's Global Health Imperative is studying whether the "Life Wrap," a simple neoprene and Velcro device (much like the bottom half of a wet suit), may fill this deadly time delay.

Activity Description:

The VitaGoat is a food processing system for developing countries, both as a vehicle for micro-enterprises as well as for providing high-quality nutrition to the local community. The machine can be used to process a variety of foods, from soybeans to tomato puree to tofu.

Vitagoat processers don't require any electricity supply or generator, as they use locally-available fuels, including wood or other biomass, or bottled gas, for the cooking section of the operation. This is a critical feature, due to the unavailable or unreliable supply, and/or high cost of electricity in most developing countries.

Training sessions and pilot runs in Chad and Guinea, which Maluntrition Matters conducted in partnership with Africare, point to the large potential that Vitagoat has for increasing food security and income.

Activity Description: The Center for Development in the Tensift Region is an NGO that partners with local research and other groups to initiate and co-fund economically sustainable projects. These projects focus on the improvement of the environment, education and business skills.
Some of CDRT's projects in the past years include:
-educating potters to use gas-powered kilns around Marrakech rather than burn tires. CDRT helped co-finance 22 kilns, which both improved the quality of the pottery and reduced harmful CO2 emissions by 12,000 tons. (2002-3)

Activity Description: In addition to providing microfinance services, NGO Opportunity International offers its clients microenterprise development services that include business training, mentoring, financial planning and leadership development.

Essential to Opportunity International's microenterprise model are its Trust Banks. These banks encourage local entrepreneurs to form groups of 15 to 40 individuals, who in turn elect a leader, and apply for a single group loan. Upon receipt of the loan, group members meet weekly for sessions including business and leadership training.

Activity Description: SR Telecom's Point-to-Multipoint Wireless Access System is a low-cost technology that is able to connect points up to 720 km from the central office through digital microwave radio and repeaters. The system is further streamlined by enabling users to manage the central station remotely through the Internet. SR Telecom has recently won a $30 million contract to provide its equipment to Rural Telephone Services Company Limited (RTS) for delivery of telephony services to rural Thailand.

Activity Description: Care With Love is an employment training and placement program for home healthcare workers in Egypt. The program employs young women and men with limited education and employment prospects, gives them quality training to become a healthcare workers, and in the process helps them to lift themselves out of poverty. The value added by this program design is two-fold: it increases the number of home healthcare workers in Egypt and provides employment to disadvantaged people.

Activity Description: Under the Novella Project, Unilever encouragers North African farmers to harvest the oil seeds grown on Allanblackia trees. Unilever promises the farmers that it will buy the oil seeds. Unilever will use them to improve the manufacture of its products. Until recently, most North African farmers had not realized the potential market for Allanblackia oil seeds, an abundant natural resource in Africa

Activity Description: SatelLife has demonstrated that PDAs can reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of disease detection and management. To prove the concept, the company, in coordination with the Acumen Fund and the Red Cross, distributed PDAs to to the rural health care workers that needed them most. From Ghana to Kenya to Malawi, PDAs changed the speed at which health data is collected, analyzed and used by doctors and health workers to fight disease.