When I was a college student, I traveled to Zambia to study informal economies and individual livelihoods along the Great East Road between Katete and Chipata. I was particularly enamored with the dynamics of the thriving second-hand clothing street markets, where one can pick up a well-loved flannel or a losing team’s championship-winning t-shirt. When […]
Originally published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on May 30, 2018. Hurricanes, air pollution, disease outbreaks — the news is filled with visual evidence of the intricate links between the environment and health. New studies and reports corroborate these global interconnections, emphasizing the fact that our health and the health of the planet are inseparable. […]
I was lucky to have the opportunity to see Hamilton in Seattle with my family last month, and I was blown away by much more than the incredible performance. What impressed me just as acutely was the fact that someone could read an 800-page biography of one of America’s founding fathers and come up with […]
Originally published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, March 8, 2018. We are facing a pivotal moment in history where two major movements are aligned. The #MeToo groundswell is changing the way we talk about taboo subjects that long seemed immune to honest discussion and genuine change. At the same time, women in philanthropy are achieving […]
Is the international development community ready for a pandemic? This is the question posed to Gabrielle Fitzgerald, CEO Panorama, and to Nancy Lee, Global Policy Lead at Wellcome Trust, by Carine Umuhumuza the Associate Digital Director at Devex. Watch the full discussion in the following video taken at the #SDGLive booth at WEF Davos 2018.
Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston in what is being called the worst storm in US history, and Hurricane Irma battered the Caribbean and Florida immediately after. More than 1,200 people died in India and Bangladesh during the heaviest monsoon rainfall in more than 15 years. Hundreds more were killed when a mudslide caused by heavy rains […]
Fifty-five years ago, President John F. Kennedy announced on a sunlit day at Rice University that “we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Seven years later, America fulfilled this mission. By the time Apollo 11 traversed the […]
Originally published by STAT, August 4, 2017. When the Democratic Republic of Congo detected cases of Ebola in May, local officials moved swiftly and global resources were rushed to help them. By the time the World Health Organization declared the outbreak over on July 2, only four people had died, four more had survived the […]
The following is an open letter to Jeff Bezos in response to his request on Twitter last week for ideas on how to shape his philanthropy. Originally published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, June 20, 2017. Dear Mr. Bezos, It’s terrific that you are thinking about getting into philanthropy. The world today faces a huge […]