Around the world, USAID incorporates practices and policies into our programs to ensure that Indigenous peoples’ rights are upheld and their voices heard. Uganda is home to a rich diversity of Indigenous peoples — including the Benet, the Tepeth, the Batwa, the Ik, and the Basongora — and it is critically important to include their perspectives when...
During the national level workshop in Nepal with women entrepreneurs held on 29th Sept 2018, lack of information and limited capability to use recent technologies for enterprise growth was reported as one of the major reasons for limited business competitiveness of women entrepreneurs (FNCCI, Nov 12, 2018). The theme of this year's International Women's Day,...
As a LASER-PULSE Consortium member, Makerere University - ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) set out to assess and understand the research context, research capacity and capacity gaps in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in fragile and conflict affected states: a Case Study of Somalia and South Sudan. A highlight of the research findings Participating Universities were highly variable in size...
Uganda language policy requires rural schools to choose a dominant local language to use as the language of learning and teaching for the first three years of primary school, while English is taught as a subject. The Tepeth and Ik people face the worst case scenario with only a few elders still able to speak...
On 15th December 2022, teams from the USAID Uganda Economic Growth and Partnership Office visited Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). The presence of the USAID Uganda Economic Growth and Partnership Offices at the meeting provided an opportunity to track the progress of project implementation and provide feedback on areas of emphasis and improvement....
In November 2022, representatives from three US-based universities visited Vientiane, Laos in support of the Applied Nutrition Research Capacity Building (ANRCB) project in Lao PDR, funded by USAID via the LASER PULSE program. It was the first team visit since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by Purdue University’s College of Agriculture and College of Health...
On December 9, 2022, the Duke University Center for International Development (DCID) and Institute for Sustainable Development at Vietnam’s National Economics University (ISD-NEU) celebrated the successful graduation of eleven entrepreneurs from their intensive, six-week courses on restaurant management, internal controls, and marketing. The graduates represent the first of 812 students who enrolled in the three...
As 2022 comes to an end, I am proud and humbled by the incredible strides LASER PULSE has made this year in conducting contextual research to provide evidence for decision-making on some of the most complex global development challenges. 2022 came with its own set of challenges, and yet again tested the resilience and spirit of...
Image 1: (Left to Right) LASER PULSE representatives Dr. Alexandra Towns and Dr. Laura Riddering (Catholic Relief Services) promote the LASER PULSE program and Embedded Research Translation (ERT) with SBCC Summit attendees. Two representatives from the LASER PULSE consortium attended the 2022 Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Marrakech, Morocco, from December 5-10th to promote...
When a pandemic disrupts your research, how do you respond? In 2020, COVID-19 threatened to upend one of LASER’s research projects and forced the research team to craft new ways forward. LASER had to evaluate risks alongside the research team and work to mitigate them. Research Project Managers at LASER deal with these unique contingencies on...
