Global Health Publications

• Briefing paper

This brief presents key lessons learned and best practices from the Young Women for Awareness, Agency, Advocacy, and Accountability (YW4A) programme across Egypt, Kenya, Palestine, and South Sudan. Drawing on experiences from women’s rights organisations, faith-based organisations, and young women leaders, it highlights practical and evidence-informed approaches that contributed to strengthening advocacy, leadership, gender equality, […]

• Learning Brief

Farmer organisations (FOs) in Africa play a dual role: as platforms for collective action and advocacy, and as commercial actors generating revenues through input supply, storage, and marketing. Yet many struggle to achieve economic viability, hampered by governance weaknesses, volatile markets, and dependence on donor support. This learning brief, written by Jaap Voeten, Fresnelle Houéfa […]

• Learning Brief

Between 2021 and 2025, KIT and IFDC collaborated on two initiatives: the HortiNigeria programme in Nigeria and the A3SEED programme in South Sudan, supporting and strengthening the horticultural and seed sector in these respective countries. Although the programmes operated in different sectors and settings, both prioritised gender and youth inclusion as part of their strategies. […]

• Learning Brief

YW4A Transformation Journeys captures the stories of change from 23 partner organisations engaged in the Young Women for Awareness, Agency, Advocacy, and Accountability (YW4A) programme across Egypt, Kenya, Palestine, and South Sudan. Developed as part of the programme’s endline reflection process and facilitated by KIT Royal Tropical Institute, the booklet builds on the Advocacy and […]

• Briefing paper

This mid-term reflection brief explores the Young Women for Awareness, Agency, Advocacy, and Accountability (YW4A) programme across Egypt, Kenya, Palestine, and South Sudan. It consolidates key insights from the internal Mid-Term Review and reflects on how the programme’s Theory of Change guides learning, collaboration, and action. The brief aims to inspire partners, women’s rights and […]

• Review

In collaboration with Tecnológico de Monterrey, KIT Institute is implementing a project funded by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, entitled “Financial Inclusion for Strengthening Climate Resilience: Exploring Adaptation Strategies and Supply Chain Impacts on Latin American Coffee Farmers.” As part of this project, KIT Institute conducted a comprehensive literature review to examine existing adaptation and mitigation strategies in agriculture, with a particular […]

• Learning Brief

The long-term sustainability of the cocoa sector is inextricably linked to the physical and mental well-being of the smallholder farmers who underpin the global supply chain. This brief brings together the existing evidence on the health issues cocoa farmers face, their links to productivity and well-being, and the steps the cocoa industry can take to […]

• Learning Brief

The Cocoa Household Income Study (CHIS) is a sector-wide initiative providing a harmonised methodology for monitoring and assessing living income in the cocoa sector. Published in 2024, the CHIS Methodology offers guidance for collecting representative and comparable household income data across all cocoa-producing households. Since its publication, the CHIS approach has been adopted across the […]

• Evaluation
• Report

This endline evaluation assesses the two-year impact of the EnRoute programme, a partnership between ETG–Beyond Beans Foundation, Oxfam Novib, and KIT Institute. The programme set out to test practical, scalable approaches to closing the living income (LI) gap and reducing child labour (CL) among 599 farming households.  The programme tested three intervention models among cocoa-farming […]

• Article

Over the past decade the global uptake of ultrasound technology and innovations to bring ultrasound closer to the people have increased substantially, offering a significant potential to improve maternal and new born health. To leverage its full potential, safeguard quality and protect the reproductive rights of of women, it is imperative to critically examine and […]

• Paper

As the majority of cocoa producers in West Africa continue to earn far below a living income, the concept of living income has become central to discussions on sustainable cocoa. While efforts have traditionally focused on increasing cocoa productivity, there is growing recognition that income diversification is essential to reduce vulnerability to price volatility and […]

• Article
• Review

Sexuality education is essential for adolescents’ and young people’s health, well-being, and rights. While recognised in policies worldwide, gaps remain in its implementation. This review explores youth perspectives on school-based sexuality education in low- and middle-income countries to understand their needs, experiences, and preferences. A scoping review was conducted across five academic databases and key […]

• Evaluation

This final report presents a comprehensive evaluation of the A3SEED project (2021–2025), a €10 million initiative funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in South Sudan and implemented by IFDC in partnership with KIT Institute. The project aimed to transform the seed sector in South Sudan by strengthening domestic seed production through a private sector–led […]

• Article

Many countries face prolonged health workforce crises, marked by shortages, maldistribution, skills mix imbalances and attrition. When workforces are overstretched, they become more vulnerable to external shocks and chronic strains, including infectious disease outbreaks, climate-related effects and political instability. This is particularly concerning as an emerging global “polycrisis” means such external pressures increasingly interact and […]

• Review
• Working Paper

This literature review examines how vertical coordination—tighter corporate control across agricultural value chains—affects development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.  Having reviewed 19 academic studies on evidence-based outcomes of vertical coordination, the focus of the analysis is on three main impact areas: (1) local economic development, (2) local job creation, and (3) the inclusion of […]

• Report
• Study

Le programme Break Free! vise à donner aux adolescents et aux jeunes les moyens d’exercer leur droit à vivre sans grossesses précoces ni mariages d’enfants, avec le soutien de la société civile. Le renforcement du plaidoyer des jeunes sur les questions de santé sexuelle et reproductive constitue un élément important pour que les jeunes puissent […]

• Report
• Study

The Break Free! programme aims to equip adolescents and youth to exercise their right to live free from teenage pregnancy and child marriage, supported by civil society. Strengthening youth advocacy on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) issues forms an important component of young people being able to claim their rights, yet limited evidence […]

• Working Paper

The HortiNigeria programme, implemented by IFDC in partnership with Wageningen Research, East-West Seed International and KIT Institute, is strengthening Nigeria’s horticulture sector across the entire value chain—from production to marketing. This new learning brief explores how local actors drive innovation within Business-to-Business (B2B) linkages in Kano, Kaduna, Ogun, and Oyo states. Using Actor-Network Theory, it […]

• Policy Brief

This policy brief provides practical guidance for companies in the cocoa, coffee and cashew sectors, and beyond, on how to reduce child labour and close living income gaps in their supply chains.

• Report

Child labour is a persistent global problem which adversely affects children’s physical and mental well-being. The problem is especially prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa: recent estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2024a) reveal an increase in child labourers from 70 million in 2016 to 87 million in 2024. Many of these children work on smallholder […]

• Study

The Break Free! (BF!) Programme aims to strengthen young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and promote gender equality in nine African countries and is funded by and implemented in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Strengthening Civil Society for SRHR partnership fund for the period from January 2021 […]

• Report

The Break Free! (BF!) programme is dedicated to strengthening the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of adolescents and young people aged 10–24, while also promoting gender equality and ensuring access to quality education Building on insights from regional learning sessions held in 2024, the programme identified an urgent need to better understand the […]

• Study
• Summary

This review highlights the urgent need to address the intersecting impacts of climate change on adolescents and young people in Southern Africa—particularly in relation to SRHR, gender equality, and education. Climate change exacerbates existing structural inequalities, disproportionately affecting marginalised groups such as girls, LGBTQI+ youth, young people with disabilities, and those living in poverty or […]

• Review
• Working Paper

This paper offers a systematic review of leading living wage (LW) and living income (LI) benchmarking methodologies to help users select the most appropriate approach for their specific context and purpose. Drawing on criteria developed by the Living Income Community of Practice—such as data quality, local adaptability, and stakeholder ownership—the review highlights the strengths and […]

• Report

Launched in 2022, Nestlé’s Income Accelerator Program aims to reduce the Living Income (LI) gap for cocoa farming households while addressing child labor risks. Centered around four key areas – school enrollment, good agricultural practices (GAPs), agroforestry, and income diversification – the program provides conditional cash transfers and resources to encourage farming practices that benefit […]

• Article

The ongoing Israel-Gaza war has led to the rampant destruction and disruption of much of Gaza’s health system, including the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and the loss of access to essential medical services [1,2]. These losses include the critical infrastructure and capacity for Gaza’s once-robust Health Information System (HIS). The disruption to the HIS […]

• Report

On 10 March, KIT Institute hosted the high-level conference “Health and Prosperity: How Dutch Investments in Global Health Drive Security and Economic Growth”, bringing together key stakeholders to examine the Netherlands’ investment role in global health initiatives. This event will highlight the economic and societal return on investment of Dutch contributions to global health financing, which […]

• Study

This study, commissioned by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as part of its effort to support the cocoa sector in Sierra Leone, compute two important  indicators: the Living Income Benchmark (LIB) for the cocoa-growing areas located in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone and the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) for the cocoa sector.  To bridge […]

• Report

Feminist movements globally are navigating complex and increasingly hostile environments. Civic space is shrinking, authoritarianism is rising, and resources for rights-based organising remain scarce and difficult to access, especially for those at the margins of mainstream funding ecosystems. Yet, at the same time, feminist movements continue to be at the forefront of innovation, resistance, and […]

• Research article

In this study, KIT epidemiologists and research partners in Afghanistan examine the availability of essential medicines in Afghanistan’s public healthcare facilities and how this is shaped by sociopolitical challenges, geographical barriers, and the organisation of the healthcare system. They conclude that decentralised procurement of medicines by non-state actors and timely payment of funds contribute to medicine […]

• Research article

After decades of conflict and instability, the Afghan health workforce has critical shortages and challenges in equitable distribution. KIT researchers, in collaboration with WHO, conducted a national assessment investigating the number of health workers and their distribution across cadres, geographies, and gender.

• Working Paper

Large (buying) companies in global value chains are increasingly seeking to integrate smallholder farmers into their supply chains. Accordingly, they have developed programs to promote smallholder inclusion through productivity growth, market access, quality improvement, and other initiatives. The complexity of these initiatives highlights the need for a deeper understanding of smallholder inclusion models, applying both […]

The past decades have witnessed a surge in digital health innovations within the field of global health. While these innovations are aimed at enhancing health and well-being, their implementation can unintentionally worsen inequities, result in unethical practices, or fail entirely if not aligned with the needs of users, clients, and systems.  This position paper draws […]

• Case Study

Feminist movements around the world comprise diverse actors and stakeholders, ranging from global organizations to local grassroots groups. Within this vibrant ecosystem, women’s funds play a crucial role as feminist philanthropic organizations. Different from women’s organizations, the primary purpose of women’s funds is to mobilize resources rather than providing direct services and programmes. Women’s funds […]

• Case Study

This case study tells the story of the women’s fund Fonds pour les Femmes Congolaises (FFC), a national feminist fund working across the Democratic Republic of Congo, with offices in Goma, Kalemie, and Kinshasa. A myriad of challenges hamper the fund’s field work and presence, including national and regional contexts of insecurity and violence, an […]

• Case Study

This case study shares the story and effects of funding collaboration on the financial resilience of two women’s funds: Women’s Fund Tanzaniaand Women’s Fund Z (WFZ), who joined to form the Feminist Financial Resilience group. The two funds collaborated with the aim of enhancing their financial resilience through a holistic approach, which they define as […]

• Case Study

This case study tells the story of the Doria Feminist Fund, an emerging Beirut-based fund in the SWANA region. Established in 2021, the fund’s inception and resilience were enabled by the Fenomenal Funds’ Resilience Grant.

• Case Study

This case study highlights the transformative journey of nine women’s funds who, through Collaborative Grants, significantly strengthened theirindividual and collective resilience. Together, they have invested in systems, processes, and knowledge management to establish effective feminist operational systems for grantmaking, while simultaneously unlocking the power of shared learning and mutual support. The work of this collaboration […]

• Case Study

What does feminist healing have to do with political turbulence and war? Or with providing financial sustainability to the feminist movement and the fightfor gender justice? These are some of the questions that the Feminist Healing Spaces collaboration group—comprising FemFund Poland, Women’s Fund Armenia, and Women’s Fund in Georgia—set out to examine with the support […]

• Case Study

This case study uses the example of Fondo de Mujeres del Sur (FMS) to explore how grants designed to support resilience can strengthen thecapacity of women’s funds in adapting to challenging contexts and building sustainable impacts. Based in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with 17 years’ experience and a regional reach across LatinAmerica, FMS has experienced […]

• Case Study

This is a case study of the collaboration group Alliance of Women’s and Feminist Funds of Latin America and the Caribbean (‘Alianza’), whose members—unlike in many other collaboration groups—had been working together for more than 17 years before partnering with Fenomenal Funds. The group’s collective initiatives, led by eight funds, all of whom are members […]

• Case Study

The backlash against gender justice initiatives in recent years has further highlighted the importance of feminist funding and resource mobilization. Mama Cash has both led and participated in efforts to support the global ecosystem of women’s funds and enhance the feminist funding architecture, partnering with likeminded organizations to influence philanthropy and encouraging government donors to […]

• Case Study

This case study highlights the transformative outcomes of the Fenomenal Funds Resilience Grant on Women’s Fund X, a small women’s fund operating under anonymity due to restrictive funding environments. The fund faced significant challenges prior to receiving the grant—including financial instability, constrained growth, and a lack of confidence among the team in its long-term sustainability. […]

• Case Study

This case study tells the story of how the Fenomenal Funds Resilience Grant supported the work of the Taso Foundation in Georgia. A membership-based national women’s fund that contributes to the feminist and social justicemovement in the country, it is focused on grantmaking, educational, and capacity building programmes. This case study tells the story of […]

• Policy Brief

This policy brief outlines practical recommendations aimed at accelerating the transition of South Sudan’s seed sector from reliance on seed aid, or free seeds distributed by humanitarian agencies, towards the development of a viable, inclusive and sustainable seed market.

Despite progress in tuberculosis (TB) treatment coverage in past years, an estimated 183000 people with TB may not have been diagnosed in Pakistan in 2022. Therefore, there is a need to develop models which help to steer active case finding (ACF) towards populations with a high probability of having undetected TB. The aim of this […]

Advocacy is a crucial activity in advancing human rights and systemtransformation. In the past decades, development agents have thereforeincreasingly invested in advocacy projects. The process of advocacy is complex. Especially advocacy for issues that are sensitive and subject to stigma, like safe abortion. Despite substantial evidence on the importance of access to safe abortion, it […]

• Report

The Embassy of the Netherlands in Mozambique commissioned KIT Institute to review progress of the regional SRHR/HIV Programme in Southern Africa. The second phase of this Regional Programme (2021–2026 with a budget of 89 million Euro) focuses on improving the quality of life for young people aged 10–29, particularly those in vulnerable situations. The Mid […]

• Study

Access to healthcare is a major challenge in South Sudan, but evidence on the factors influencing health seeking behaviour (HSB) and the magnitude of their effect is limited. This study aims to identify which determinants are associated with seeking care for perceived health needs and with seeking care at private or public healthcare facilities in […]

• Research article

To address problems of over- and under-treatment with preventive chemotherapy resulting in ongoing transmission of schistosomiasis, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends targeted mass drug administration (MDA) interventions at a sub-district level. In Tanzania, the lack of sub-district (ward) prevalence data has inhibited a transition to targeted treatment. Model-based prevalence estimation combined with routine surveillance […]

• Review

This report presents the high-level findings of the mid-term review (MTR) of the IDH corporate portfolio in its 2021-2025 funding period, performed by KIT Institute and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

• Article

As extreme weather events increase in frequency and intensity, the health system faces significant challenges, not only from shifting patterns of climate-sensitive diseases but also from disruptions to healthcare infrastructure, supply chains and the physical systems essential for delivering care. This necessitates the strategic use of geospatial tools to guide the delivery of healthcare services […]

• Report

“Uniting Knowledge, Resources and Solidarity”, the third Gaza Health Initiative (GHI) conference, held on Friday, 13 September 2024 at KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam convened over 200 humanitarian and development practitioners, global health experts and policy makers, working in Gaza and internationally, to support the recovery of Gaza’s devastated health sector. The conference discussed […]

• Review

This Break Free! brief aims to provide an easy-to-read description of lessons learnt in implementing social norms change interventions in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), particularly around preventing child marriage and teenage pregnancy. The brief was developed based on an extensive document review. The recommendations section was informed by three virtual working sessions […]

• Report

Sudan is the only country in North Africa that has not reformed the Personal Status Act for Muslims (also known as family law) which makes child marriage legal in Sudan. As of 2014, 38% of women (20-49 years) were married before the age of 18, and 12% of women (15-49 years) were married before the […]

• Research article

Afghanistan’s public healthcare system is vital in providing care to the economically disadvantaged and managing infectious diseases and maternal health problems. In this article KIT epidemiologists and research partners in Afghanistan re-analysed the Afghanistan Health Survey 2018 in combination with data on the quality of public healthcare facilities from a national healthcare facility assessment of […]

• Paper

As extreme weather events increase in frequency and intensity, the health system faces significant challenges, not only from shifting patterns of climate-sensitive diseases but also from disruptions to healthcare infrastructure, supply chains and the physical systems essential for delivering care. This necessitates the strategic use of geospatial tools to guide the delivery of healthcare services […]

• Report

The active participation of young individuals in the development and execution of programs and policies directed towards youth, particularly in matters of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), is key for the effectiveness of such initiatives. Meaningful involvement of youth in advocacy entails their engagement across all stages of advocacy, encompassing issue selection, strategy […]

• Paper

Seed aid—or free distribution of seeds to farmers—is a popular intervention to simultaneously reduce food insecurity and dependency on food aid in fragile countries. However, seed aid distribution also has the potential to hinder or distort the development of local seed markets. This study analyses the targeting and impact of seed aid across the green […]

• Report

This synthesis of six case studies studies the impact of the “landscape approach” and offers recommendations for its design and setup, as this approach – in theory – has the potential to support effective and sustainable action to prevent and address child labour. Based on an operational definition of a “landscape approach” – an approach […]

• Working Paper

This paper unravels the gender relations in rural forest-dependent communities in Ethiopia by taking a closer look at the country’s Bale Ecoregion, located in the Oromia regional state. Drawing on primary quantitative and qualitative data, the paper explores women’s roles as users of forest resources and in forest resource management, before reflecting on the construction […]

• Research article

In 1993, WHO declared tuberculosis (TB) as a global health emergency considering 10 million people are battling TB, of which 30% are undiagnosed annually. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic took an unprecedented toll on health systems in every country. Public health staff already engaged in TB control and numerous other departments were additionally tasked with […]

• Research article

The adverse impacts of climate change on aquatic food systems (AFS) and the people who depend on AFS for livelihood security are inequitably distributed between and within countries. People facing the highest risks and experiencing the severest impacts of climate change are those who already experience multidimensional inequalities in their lives, particularly because of their […]

The Break Free! (BF!) programme is a multi-country programme coordinated by Plan International, together with SRHR Africa Trust (SAT) and Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) as consortium partners and the Rozaria Memorial Trust and KIT Institute as technical partners. The aim of BF! is to enable young people to exercise their right to live […]

• Working Paper

This literature review analyses how gender is understood and advanced in conservation practice, in general, and in Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCE), in particular. It identifies knowledge gaps, trends and opportunities based on a review of academic and grey literature, and critically looks at how conservation and development are working on generating a positive impact for […]

• Research article

Consolidating, analysing and synthesizing the empirical literature on gender and forest resources within low- and middle-income countries to unravel the multifaceted factors contributing to gender disparities. This systematic literature review provides a comprehensive understanding of the gender disparities in forest resource management, highlighting the multifaceted impact of gender norms on women’s access to and use […]

• Evaluation
• Report

Facing some of the most significant shortages in health workers globally, the World Health Organization’s South-East Asian regional office selected UHC, focusing on human resources for health (HRH) and essential medicines, as a flagship priority in 2014. This commitment then evolved into the ‘Decade of HRH Strengthening (2015-2024)’: a ten-year agenda of HRH strengthening launched […]

• Report

In 2022, Nestlé launched the Income Accelerator Program in Côte d’Ivoire as part of their ambition to help close the Living Income (LI) gap in their cocoa supply chain and combat the root causes of child labour risks. The current test-at-scale phase involves 10,000 farming households in Côte d’Ivoire, following a previous one-year piloting period among 1,000 farming households. These […]

• Study

The cocoa sector has been working to deliver living incomes for cocoa farming households since 2015, but learning at the sector level aimed at achieving living incomes has been hampered by challenges in data collection and sharing. To address these challenges and to inform policy and strategy design and delivery with a focus on impact […]

• Article

In 2019, FIGO started implementing its abortion project focusing on advocacy. The Advocacy for Safe Abortion (ASA) Project was conducted in partnership with 10 national professional societies of obstetrics and gynecology in Latin America and Africa. The project aimed to strengthen national societies, support them to be leaders in sexual and reproductive health, and enable […]

• Article

Abortion laws are key in creating an enabling environment that facilitates the advancement of people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Around 50 countries have liberalized their abortion laws in the last decades by adding new grounds allowing abortion. The road toward the expansion of legal abortion is a long, highly sensitive, and difficult process. […]

• Research article

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease in Tanzania affecting over 50% of the population. Current control strategies involve mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns at the district level, which have led to problems of over- and under-treatment in different areas. WHO guidelines have called for more targeted MDA to circumvent these problems, however a scarcity of prevalence […]

• Paper

Countries which imposed strict containment measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are thought to have faced particular socio-economic challenges. This study assesses the implications of COVID-19 disruptions on local agri-food value chain actors in Kenya and Uganda, as both countries enacted strict lockdowns to limit the spread of the virus.  Using survey data from […]

• Study

The Break Free! Consortium in Zambia is – through a mixture of interventions that include lobby and advocacy – working towards reducing child marriage in Eastern province in Zambia, a province with a high child marriage rate (45.4% of women aged 20-24 were married by the age of 18 in 2018). The Break Free! partners, […]

• Report

This report presents the findings of the mid-term evaluation (MTE) of the second phase of IDH’s Initiative for Sustainable Landscapes (ISLA), funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ISLA programme was first launched in 2015 and is now half-way its second funding period (2021-2025). In view thereof, the purpose of this MTE is—besides accountability to […]

• Research article

The emergence of palm oil as the world’s most produced and consumed vegetable oil has prompted various policy initiatives to help govern the industry in a sustainable manner. These initiatives include transnational sustainable certification schemes, such as the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and national level sustainability standards, such as Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil. […]

• Study

Community bylaws are commonly accepted mechanisms to influence behaviour change to achieve better health and development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the uses, benefits, and potential downsides of community bylaws are largely unclear, especially regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of young people. The objective of this study was to determine the extent […]

• Working Paper

Social norms are widely accepted, informal, typically unspoken and unwritten rules of acceptable, appropriate, and obligatory behavior. They are often implicit, to the point where people internalize, accept, and follow them without critical thought.  Social norms are strongly linked to, but different from, behavior: they govern a behavior but are not the behavior itself. As […]

• Research article

Evaluation in complex programs assembling multiple actors and combining various interventions faces contradictory requirements. In this article, we take a management perspective to show how to recognize and accommodate these contradictory elements as paradoxes. Through reflective practice we identify five paradoxes, each consisting of two contradicting logics: the paradox of purpose—between accountability and learning; the […]

• Paper

This methodological paper introduces four projects, all of which aimed to increase women’s engagement in and benefit from the livestock vaccine value chains of small ruminants and poultry by improving women’s empowerment and supporting women’s access to animal health services. All four projects used a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand the […]

• Book chapter

Understanding sexuality and power relations from the life experiences of young women Women’s sexuality was originally included in the development agenda mainly in relation to health and risks. With time, it has started to be understood also through the lenses of the ‘empowerment’ and ‘rights’ approaches. This chapter looks at the way in which young […]

• Review

In the late 1970s the first cases of a new, unknown disease began to appear, that would quickly develop into one of the modern world’s largest public health and development crises. Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has killed millions of people over four decades, most of them in low- and middle-income countries. It has challenged […]

• Working Paper

KIT Working Paper Child labour remains a persistent human rights violation in international commodity supply chains, adversely impacting children’s physical and mental health and depriving them of educational opportunities (UNICEF, 2020). This holds true for the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire; a country that produces 43% of all cocoa worldwide (ICCO, 2022). A nationwide study […]

• Research article

Third party monitoring (TPM) is used in development programming to assess deliverables in a contract relationship between purchasers (donors or government) and providers (non-governmental organisations or non-state entities). In this paper, we draw from our experience as public health professionals involved in implementing and monitoring the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) and the Essential […]

• Research article

This paper reviews knowledge generated over the past 10 years on gendered patterns to engagement, returns on engagement, and power relations in agrifood value chains. It examines how research has advanced, evidence of improvements in gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the circumstances under which any advances have happened. Gender inequalities in value chains remain […]

• Research article

In sub-Saharan Africa, economic aspirations often conflict with aspirations to follow traditional social obligations. We test whether adolescents are influenced by friends when deciding which one to prioritize. To do so, we elicit the preferences and perceived competition between economic and social aspirations of 533 Ugandan students, as well as their friendship ties. Using characteristics […]

• Research article

Young people in Pakistan face challenges such as child marriage, which have adverse consequences on their education, employment, health and overall well-being.  We conducted interviews (26) and focus group discussions (12) with young people (15 to 24 years) and community stakeholders to understand how child marriage is perceived by them and to gain insight into […]

• Study

Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) is one of the greatest protection, human rights and public health challenges that is present in all societies and is further exacerbated during humanitarian emergencies. In Yemen a nine-year-long conflict has prompted one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. More than 23.4 million people are in need […]

• Research article

Gender-transformative change requires a commitment from everyone involved in agricultural research for development (AR4D) including organizations at international and national level, individual researchers and practitioners, farmers, development agencies, policy-makers and consumers, to transform the existing values, practices and priorities that (re)produce and perpetuate gender biases and inequities in agrifood systems.  However, the adoption of a […]

• Research article

The aim of the study presented in this article is to discuss the safety and quality of health care using content shared in Facebook groups and to reflect on patient’s perspective on these issues. It is a qualitative study using as data source posts from three groups that addressed these issues on Facebook during the research period. Data […]

• Book chapter

While legitimacy related to frugal innovation has not yet received much attention, in this chapter we argue that the concept is of key importance to this field. We identify three legitimacy challenges for frugal innovation: the possibly exploitative tendencies associated with the dominant role of MNCs in local informal communities; how frugal innovations are often […]

• Research article

Patient safety in childbirth care is a current topic on the agendas of discussion about the quality of maternal and child care around the world. This qualitative study sought to discuss the adverse events in childbirth care and its contributing factors, as perceived by patients and family members, using data collected from posts in Facebook […]

• Research article

The internet is an increasingly influential actor and arena for debating emerging sustainability controversies, but studies often overlook the role of visualisations in online spreading of information.  This paper offers a way to better understand this role: what images do competing online actors use, are there differences between opponents and proponents, differences between internet regions, […]

• Research article

Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities in fragile and conflict-affected settings may be severe due to reduced access and use of healthcare, as happened during the 2015 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak. Achieving a balance between short-term emergency response and addressing long-term health needs is particularly challenging in fragile and conflict-affected settings such as […]

Young people on their successes, challenges, and motivations for youth-led SRHR advocacy in Ethiopia Youth-led advocacy as a concept is becoming increasingly familiar in development programmes, and in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programmes specifically. Yet, research on this topic is rather scarce. Youth-led advocacy is usually understood as young people meaningfully involved […]

• Working Paper

This article explores the re-emergence of millet in domestic value chains and its use by private actors with innovative business models – using fortification or biofortification – to highlight millet’s smart food properties. While millet has been in the shadow of rice and wheat production for decades, recently there has been renewed interest in millet […]

• Research article

Conflict has devastating effects on health systems, especially on healthcare workers (HCWs) working in under-resourced and hostile environments. However, little evidence is available on how policy-makers, often together with development partners, can optimize the organization of the health workforce and support HCWs to deliver accessible and trustworthy health services in conflict-affected settings (CAS). A scoping […]

• Report

The Income Accelerator Program (IAP) aims to tackle key issues facing farm households in the cocoa sector – such as Living Income (LI) gap, child labor, and lack of women empowerment – by enhancing cocoa productivity, increasing additional income sources, improving gender equality, creating a professional labor force, and improving access to loans and savings. […]

Participatory approaches to improving sexual and reproductive health and rights Theatre for a Change (TfaC) is an organisation that, since 2003, has been aiming to improve the sexualand reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes of women and girls who have been marginalised, through participatory learning and drama. Owing much to the work of Augusto Boal, […]