Firmly grounded in proven practices, Breakthrough ACTION works in partnership with governments, civil society, and communities around the world to implement creative and sustainable SBC programming, nurture SBC champions, mainstream new techniques and technologies, and advocate strategic and sustained investment in SBC.
Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) Plus is USAID’s flagship initiative in private sector health. The project seeks to harness the full potential of the private sector and catalyze public-private engagement to improve health outcomes in family planning, HIV, child health, and other health areas. SHOPS Plus supports the achievement of US government priorities, including ending preventable child and maternal deaths, an AIDS-free generation, and FP2020. The project improves the equity and quality of the total health system.
USAID’s Swachchhata (Hygiene) Activity strengthens community health by improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and electricity infrastructure, infection prevention practices, and hygiene behavior at health facilities.
Global Waters Radio recently spoke with water expert and engineer Eric Viala, who shares examples from Africa’s Sahel region to Cambodia about the powerful ways that strengthened water security contributes to environmental sustainability and improves communities’ resilience in the face of natural disasters.
This year’s Global Water and Development Report of Water and Sanitation Activities examines USAID programming through the lens of its new areas of focus and opportunity, takes a closer look at USAID’s support for partner countries on their journeys to self-reliance, and provides a country breakdown of WASH and water funding.
In western Nepal, pollution, fishing with electric current, explosive devices, and other destructive practices threaten the biodiversity of the country's great rivers and the generations-old cultural traditions of fishing communities. But the tide is turning in some of these communities, where those who once contributed to the problem are increasingly becoming part of the solution.
Building a foundation of commercial approaches and new institutional models to close financing gaps to achieving universal access to water and sanitation services.
SERVIR, a joint NASA and USAID initiative, is building the capacity of water resources departments in national governments in South Asia to use satellite data and hydrologic model products to improve water resource assessments. In Afghanistan and other countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya, SERVIR is helping government departments manage their water resources during the critical low-flow period, as well as during roaring floods.
When the citizens of Lapilang, a village in the northeastern region of Nepal, needed fresh drinking water, they would collect their buckets and set out on an hours long journey up a steep mountainside overlooking the foothills of the Himalayas.
The purpose of the Regional WASH Innovation Challenge will be to identify innovative solutions to promote handwashing with soap that can be implemented to scale in the South Asia region. The promotion will focus on:
