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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Mongolia: Songs of success January 6, 2012
Tserennadmid is a woman with plenty to sing about. Her company, Zugraan Egshig, or Six Tunes, is a thriving tourism and produce business located in an especially scenic region of Mongolia's Arkhangai province.
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Nepal: From unbanked to borrowers December 14, 2011
If you’re a bank, eastern Nepal might not seem like the most desirable place to open new branches.
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Myanmar: Cookstoves to the rescue December 8, 2011
Myat Soe and his family lost their house, fishing business and small grocery in the 2008 cyclone that devastated Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta. Afterwards, they moved in with his father and struggled just to make ends meet.
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Haiti: Insuring women-owned businesses against natural disaster December 1, 2011
I have been in Haiti for a mere 36 hours and have already waded through a river, trekked through rice fields, climbed mountains and stumbled upon a buzzing open market in a remote village in the Central Plateau.
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Myanmar: Changing times November 30, 2011
Change was a theme that kept cropping up during my visit to Myanmar earlier this year. The changes the country has seen since my grandfather lived there in the 1940s. The changes Cyclone Nargis brought in 2008 to the thousands of families it affected.
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Mongolia: Khureltogoo, carpenter in rural Mongolia November 23, 2011
Since 2005, Khureltogoo has secured two loans totaling £9,600 thanks to guarantees provided by Mercy Corps. He used them to renovate a workshop, add a drying facility and purchase high-powered, modern equipment.
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Japan: Restarting small businesses November 14, 2011
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West Bank and Gaza: Getting Google to Gaza November 1, 2011
Through an innovative Mercy Corps’ partnership with Google and the Source of Hope Foundation, young Palestinian web developers receive firsthand training and mentoring from engineers and business people from cutting-edge technology companies – as well as potential seed capital funding.
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Iraq: 'I'm an employee now' October 18, 2011
Hamid Jassim is the 52-year-old father of a big family – he has two sons and three daughters, and is known in his community as Abo Mustafa. I met him while he was working as a laborer on a project for the rehabilitation of Basma Kindergarten, in the Jalawla neighborhood outside of Khanaqin.
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West Bank and Gaza: Empowering the techno-geeks of Palestine October 10, 2011
This summer, I attended an event in the Gaza Strip with 100 computer-science students and budding entrepreneurs about the latest open-source software and development tools, showcased by engineers visiting from Google.