Latin American Stories, from Latin American Filmmakers: Solutions Inside Out, Season Two
What happens when skilled visual storytellers and inspiring nonprofits from the same regions come together to document positive change in their communities? As an ongoing collaboration between the Video Consortium and…
Making Sanitation Everyone’s Business
I remember walking into the offices of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) along with my colleagues at Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) nearly eight years…
An Ambitious Plan to Tackle One City’s Dirty Secret
It’s late in the evening in Malindi, a coastal city in Kenya. The city attracts many tourists keen to enjoy its beautiful beaches and the warm waters of the Indian…
The Power of Collective Healing to Support Healthy People on a Thriving Planet
Healing collective trauma at the community level, and planetary health are now becoming part of the DNA of the healthcare system, and that gives me an enormous amount of hope.…
Secure Land Rights: A Sustainable Solution at the Intersection of Climate Change and COVID-19
COVID-19 and climate change are impacting all of us, but the dual disasters have a disproportionate impact on communities in emerging economies. These impacts are felt most acutely in rural…
Missing Puzzle Pieces: How Structures of Patriarchy and Notions of Motherhood Shaped My Social Change Work
One of my first childhood memories is of a never-ending sea of small yellow rooms, sprawling across a desert with not a single tree. Many people wore the same kind…
It Took a Pandemic to Show that Handwashing is a Lifesaver—and a Privilege
It took a global pandemic to raise the world’s awareness of the importance of handwashing and access to clean water – basic services that over 2 billion people in the world still lack. Many of us in the US and…
Tapping Small Loans for Toilets and Safe Water Unleashes Women’s Potential
Women who lack access to life’s basics know exactly what they need. And they’re getting it. As different as everyone’s life may be, there are a few basic human functions…
How Five Dangerous Myths Keep Water and Sanitation from 883 Million People
What does it mean to give one person access to clean water or safe sanitation? For them and their family, it means the world: dignity, health, more time to work, study,…
How Big Data Helps Ma Jun Fight for Blue Skies and Clean Rivers in China
Long before he founded the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), Ma Jun was a trailblazing investigative environmental journalist in China. His groundbreaking reporting on the mounting environmental crisis…
Secure Land Rights for Climate Resilience
The world’s attention this week has turned to Katowice, Poland, where leaders and advocates have gathered to discuss the global climate change agenda at the COP24 United Nations Climate Change…
How to Spend a Billion Bucks? The Global Water Crisis
How would you spend a billion dollars? Gary White knows what he will do. The Water.org CEO and co-founder says his organization has reached the $1 billion milestone in its…
How to Improve Sanitation Across an Entire City: the Case of Visakhapatnam
Half of the one billion people in the world who still defecate in the open live in India. Poor sanitation in India is not just a rural issue: at least…
How a Mapping Technology Helps the Poor Convert Wasteland to Thriving Commons in India
In India, some 50 million hectares of land, an area the size of Kenya, is classified as "wastelands and degraded lands"—a holdover from a colonial land management philosophy that fails…
Our Commitment to Urgent Climate Action
From water resource management and food production, to disease and conflict: climate change exacerbates underlying vulnerabilities. As the severity of these impacts increase over the coming decades, poor communities in…
We Are Still In: States, Cities, and Businesses Renew Clean Energy Commitments in Wake of Paris Withdrawal
With President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, it’s become even more clear how critical the leadership of investors and companies are in tackling climate change and pushing for clean…
Skoll World Forum 2017 Reflection: Global Health, from Innovation to Implementation
"Global health is a marathon, not a sprint." -- Barbara Bush, Global Health Corps The race often starts with great excitement over big breakthroughs: new vaccines and treatments, new technologies…
Highlights from Skoll World Forum 2017
The annual Skoll World Forum was, as always, an inspiring, energizing, and at times dizzying week of conversations and celebrations in the hallowed halls and cobblestoned streets of Oxford. Stephan Chambers…
