Economic opportunity
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Photo: Sean Sheridan for Mercy Corps
Markets, whether large or small, keep communities thriving. But conflicts, disasters and a lack of infrastructure can prevent people from conducting the daily transactions on which all growth and progress depend. Around the world, Mercy Corps discovers why commerce is stuck.
In some places, manufacturers need loans to purchase equipment and young people desire job skills. In others, key transportation routes to market must be rebuilt or farmers require better storage to keep their inventory fresh until sold.
Our economic development projects provide financing, equipment, training or technical support. These projects help people find jobs, build their businesses, supply their communities with the goods they need —and improve their lives.
All stories about Economic opportunity
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Haiti: Interviews in the camps, a year later January 11, 2011
A few days ago, I went out to the Mojapta displacement camp, where Mercy Corps is providing clean water and sanitation to families, to ask earthquake survivors about their experiences today — and of the last year. Gilberte Jean, 23
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Nicaragua: ¡Vivan los empresarios!: Mentoring entrepreneurs in Central America January 6, 2011
Starting with just a sewing machine, Aida Mayorga and Oscar Garcia built a business that now employs more than 50 workers and promotes positive environmental and social business practices.
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Haiti: Introducing Haiti's first mobile wallet December 29, 2010
Mercy Corps has teamed up with mobile operator Voilà and Haitian bank Unibank to introduce Haiti's first "mobile wallet," a cellphone account that can store savings and work like a debit card.
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Haiti: The source of Haiti's success December 29, 2010
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Haiti: Help for Haiti's homeless December 29, 2010
After his house collapsed in the earthquake, Junior Moise, 30, had no better option than to move his wife and daughter to a tent camp near Frere Road in Port-au-Prince.
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Haiti: The long road to recovery December 29, 2010
The Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti decimated the capital city of Port-au-Prince, killing more than 230,000 people. It was a tragic blow to a country where 55 percent of the population already lived below the poverty line of $1 a day.
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Sudan: Out of destruction, rebuilding hope in Abyei December 28, 2010
It has been just over two and a half years since clashes between the northern Sudan Armed Forces and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army burned Abyei town to the ground.
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Haiti: Mobile money in Haiti December 27, 2010
Around 6:30 on Friday morning, I left Port-au-Prince with Nick Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn and their two teenage kids to Saint Marc, a seaside city about a two and a half hour drive north of the capital, to check out Mercy Corps' use of mobile phones to deliver assistance to earthquake-affected famili
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Indonesia: Bringing healthy street food to Tegal Alur December 27, 2010
“Hi friends! Come to My Child's Café… choose and get various healthy snacks here,” said a catchy jingle that played during over the grand opening of My Child Café and its healthy kitchen in West Jakarta's impoverished Tegal Alur neighborhood.
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Central African Republic: Hadja becomes an entrepreneur December 20, 2010
Hadja had never engaged in commerce, and had never had an opportunity to generate her own income — until she joined the Mercy Corps Village Savings and Loan Association.