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Project AI Evidence: 3 Ways This Initiative Tackles Poverty

Project AI EvidencePeople often consider AI a groundbreaking technology that is set to reshape lives in the future, both near and far. In recent times, the technology has drawn increased scrutiny due to its harmful effects, such as its water consumption, disruption of the job market and myriad other issues.

One initiative seeking to reap the benefits of AI is Project AI Evidence (PAIE), which the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT launched in February 2026. The initiative connects governments, NGOs and tech companies with experts in fields such as economics at MIT. This article outlines three ways Project AI Evidence is working to lift people out of poverty.

1. Closing Gaps in the Classroom

Kenya’s education system faces deep challenges that make personalized learning especially valuable. According to UNICEF, the pupil-to-teacher ratio reaches 77 to one in counties such as Turkana, and roughly nine in 10 children from poor households fail to complete eighth grade. The country also contends with a teacher deficit of more than 90,000, overcrowded classrooms and stark regional inequalities in learning outcomes. Against this backdrop, tools that help teachers tailor instruction to individual students could reshape how millions of children learn.

The education social enterprise EIDU has developed an AI tool in Kenya that caters classroom teaching to the individual needs of students. The tool identifies gaps in student learning and flags areas that require more attention. EIDU’s platform combines structured pedagogy with digital personalized learning content, and the organization has agreements with 46 out of 47 Kenyan counties to provide the platform to all pre-primary schools, with a goal of reaching two million learners by 2026. In India, the NGO Pratham has incorporated AI into its evidence-informed “Teaching at the Right Level” approach to expand personalized learning. J-PAL researchers Daron Acemoglu, Iqbal Dhaliwal and Francisco Gallego will lead studies evaluating both cases, measuring key outcomes such as teacher productivity and student learning.

2. Classroom Gender Bias Reduction

In Italy, researchers are collaborating with the Ministry of Education to test whether AI tools can address classroom gender bias. The research targets gaps in student performance and the subconscious bias educators may hold toward their students based on gender. Project AI Evidence is studying two tools. One helps teachers predict student performance, while the other provides real-time feedback on the diversity of teachers’ classroom decisions.

3. Use of AI in Finding Job Opportunities

Returning to Kenya, the stakes for youth employment are considerable. The Federation of Kenya Employers reports that young people aged 15 to 34 make up roughly 35% of the population but face an unemployment rate of nearly 67%, about five times the national average. More than 1 million young Kenyans enter the labor market each year, many without the skills employers seek. The World Bank places the narrower youth unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 at 15.25% in 2025.

Jasmin Baier and J-PAL researcher Christian Meyer, in collaboration with NGOs Swahilipot and Tabiya, are evaluating a career guidance AI tool called Compass. Tabiya has launched Compass as an open-source chatbot that helps job seekers explore and articulate their skills, including those gained through informal work. The tool is designed to recognize capabilities from both formal and informal work experiences and to match job seekers with opportunities suited to their actual skill sets. Pilot programs are running in Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia, and more than 600 youth on Kenya’s coast have already received training in soft skills and AI through Swahilipot’s programs to boost job prospects. The J-PAL evaluation will measure how the tool changes job search strategies and employment outcomes. The research aims to aid career counsellors rather than replace them.

Why Poverty Is at the Heart of the Initiative

The three projects share a common thread. Each targets a country where poverty, education and employment reinforce one another. In Italy, absolute poverty reached 5.7 million people in 2024, according to the national statistics agency ISTAT. The divide is sharply regional. Households in absolute poverty reached 10.5% in the South compared with 6.5% in the Center, and ISTAT’s data show that the incidence falls significantly as the educational qualification of the household reference person rises. Italian children and young people have borne much of the burden, with more than 1.28 million minors in absolute poverty.

In Kenya, the picture is even starker. According to UNICEF, approximately 1.13 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school, and hidden costs such as uniforms push many families out of the system entirely. A 2024 peer-reviewed study published in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education found that the financial burden of school uniforms was among the largest contributors to dropout decisions in Kenya. Access to higher education remains deeply constrained: the World Bank puts Kenya’s tertiary enrollment ratio at around 10% of the relevant age group, and many graduates still find their skills misaligned with labor market needs. Education and employment form a tight loop. Without schooling, young people struggle to find dignified work, and without work, families cannot break cycles of poverty that keep the next generation out of school.

By targeting both ends of this loop, personalizing classroom instruction and connecting job seekers to overlooked opportunities, Project AI Evidence attempts to address poverty at the points where AI tools can realistically intervene.

Conclusion

As AI expands its reach into most facets of modern society, research such as that conducted at Project AI Evidence aims to highlight the positive effects the technology can have on issues such as poverty alleviation through better education, reducing gender-based bias and surfacing job opportunities. Funders, including Google.org, Community Jameel, Canada’s International Development Research Centre, U.K. International Development and Amazon Web Services, provide strong financial backing to expand the research and potentially implement further tools.

J-PAL plans to expand its reach and connect with governments across the globe. The organization aims to achieve its goals responsibly through data-driven scientific measures. With tools such as these, policymakers can draw on new evaluations to address the myriad issues that pertain to global poverty in the years ahead.

– Jamie Noone

Jamie is based in Dublin, Ireland and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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Innovate Health Africa’s DHLSAT

Man using a tablet in a bright room, Innovate Health Africa initiative. DHLSATDigital health literacy in Africa is becoming as essential as a stethoscope. As African health care rapidly adopts electronic health records, telemedicine and mobile health applications, frontline health workers increasingly need digital skills to provide effective care. A new tool developed by Innovate Health Africa is helping them find out exactly where they stand and what to do next.

A Continent Adopting Digital Tools

Africa carries approximately 25% of the world’s disease burden but accounts for only 3% of the global health care workforce, according to McKinsey. To bridge that gap, African health care has increasingly turned to digital health tools. However, this adoption has revealed a critical challenge: many health workers lack the digital literacy needed to use those tools effectively.

Research conducted across sub-Saharan Africa found that low digital literacy levels and limited access to technology represent key challenges for health workers and patients alike when adopting and embracing digital health tools. In Ethiopia, studies found that only around half of health care workers demonstrated sufficient digital literacy levels, with gaps widening in rural and lower-income areas.

The consequences are significant. Addressing the health care worker shortage in sub-Saharan Africa could reduce the region’s disease burden by 35% and increase its GDP by an estimated $22 billion a year, except if those workers are equipped with the skills to operate in an increasingly digital health landscape.

What Is the DHLSAT?

Innovate Health Africa is an organization advancing equitable health care in Africa through innovation, research and workforce capacity development. It developed the Digital Health Literacy Self-Assessment Tool (DHLSAT) to address this gap.

The DHLSAT is a scientifically validated diagnostic framework developed to align with continental health workforce digital readiness efforts. It empowers frontline health care professionals across Africa to precisely map their digital competencies, identify critical literacy gaps and access tailored recommendations to accelerate digital readiness at the frontline.

How It Works

Health care professionals complete the DHLSAT assessment online and receive a personalized digital health literacy profile based on four proficiency tiers: Practitioner, Explorer, Innovator and Expert. Each tier reflects a different level of digital health competency ranging from foundational awareness to advanced innovation capability.

Following the assessment, the tool generates personalized recommendations and scientifically validated insights to guide each user’s digital health literacy growth. Users can download their digital health literacy profile report and share it with employers, recruiters, academic institutions or other relevant organizations.

The DHLSAT covers key areas of digital health competency, including data governance, bioinformatics, digital health’s role in climate change and the broader digital health landscape across Africa, giving health workers a comprehensive view of both their strengths and the areas that require development.

DHLSAT’s Impact

The response from health care professionals who have used the tool reflects its practical value. One user, Dr. Alex O., described the experience as opening a new perspective on developing digital skills. Another user, Kofo Kola O., described the profile as clearly articulating both strengths and weaknesses in a way that felt comforting, exciting and inspiring. A community health worker, Sarah T.S., noted that with Innovate Health Africa’s guidance, her community health project now reaches more than 10,000 people monthly.

Building the Foundation for Digital Readiness

The DHLSAT does not operate alone. Innovate Health Africa works with more than 30 trusted partners in more than six countries and operates across three core portfolios: workforce capacity development, implementation research and innovation. Furthermore, the organization designs and delivers competency-based training in digital health, generates scientific evidence on how digital health is being experienced across African health systems and works with public and private health institutions to design and implement community-shaped digital health solutions.

The DHLSAT fits within a broader strategy to ensure that Africa’s digital health transformation is led by informed, capable health workers instead of being undermined by a skills gap that goes undiagnosed and unaddressed.

Looking Ahead

Africa’s digital health sector is growing rapidly, and the need for a skilled, digitally literate health workforce has never been more necessary. By giving health care professionals the ability to assess their own digital readiness, receive personalized guidance and track their progress, the DHLSAT represents a practical, scalable solution to one of the continent’s most pressing workforce challenges.

– Joy Kohol

Joy is based in Muncie, IN, USA and focuses on Good News and Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Unsplash

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Vietnam Won the GSMA Government Leadership Award

GSMAFor three years, Vietnam has been Asia’s fastest-growing economy. One reason contributing to this growth, leading to Vietnam winning the Global System for Mobile Communications Association’s (GSMA) Government Leadership Award, is the country’s Digital Transformation Agenda. This, along with strict adherence to and oversight of its goals over the last couple of years.

How Vietnam Achieved This

According to the GSMA, Vietnam’s digital economy contributed 18.3% of GDP in 2024, with the government on track to hit its ambitious 20.5% target this year. The award was given based on achieving five pillars as part of the index: Infrastructure, Innovation, Data Governance, Security and People. “Vietnam’s rapidly expanding digital economy is expected to contribute around 30% of its GDP by 2030, supported by strong foreign direct investment in sectors such as semiconductors, AI and smart manufacturing,” said Julian Gorman, head of Asia-Pacific at GSMA.

A Nation Built on Strategy, Not Luck

The GSMA’s Digital Nations APAC 2025 report positions Vietnam as a primary engine of Southeast Asia’s digital economy. The report notes that Vietnam’s progress reflects deliberate policy choices rather than chance, marking a clear national shift from mere digital adoption to strategic nation-building. Furthermore, the GSMA Digital Nations Index 2025 ranks Vietnam in the top half of all Asia-Pacific nations and the country is now on course to become the second-largest digital economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by 2030. Vietnam has achieved this at a national scale across a population of more than 100 million people, making the pace of transformation particularly noteworthy.

The Award and What It Means

The GSMA presented Vietnam with the Government Leadership Award 2026 at the Digital Nation Summit Hanoi 2026, held on May 26, 2026. The award is the highest global honor for digital policy and is decided each year by an independent panel of international experts, based on evidence of digital progress, policy consistency and delivery.

Vietnam was selected not only for its bold National Digital Transformation Roadmap but also for its timely and coordinated delivery over the past two years. “It is a real honor to recognize the Government of Vietnam as the recipient of the GSMA Government Leadership Award 2026,” said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer at GSMA. Sinclair noted that Vietnam had been recognized not for a single initiative, but for the coherence, pace and consistency of its digital transformation, adding that it represents one of the clearest examples of how digital ambition, when matched with policy discipline and coordinated execution, produces real economic impact.

Vietnam’s Digital Future

The GSMA has identified two priorities for Vietnam’s next phase of development. The first is strengthening trust and cybersecurity. The overarching goal focuses on ensuring that growth in digital services is matched by real-time coordination between telecom operators, financial institutions and public authorities to protect consumers from scams and data breaches. Initiatives such as the Asia-Pacific Cross-Sector Anti-Scam Taskforce (ACAST) and the GSMA Open Gateway framework offer a practical foundation for this work. For a nation of more than 100 million people that has transformed its digital economy in under a decade, Vietnam’s recognition as one of the world’s most dynamic digital leaders stands as a model for what sustained policy commitment and coordinated government action can achieve.

– Jamie Noone

Jamie is based in Dublin, Ireland and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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3 Projects Combatting Food Insecurity in Eritrea

Food Insecurity in EritreaEritrea is a small country with a population of approximately 3.6 million, located in the Horn of Africa and divided into six administrative regions. Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti border Eritrea, which has an arid and semi-arid climate with limited and erratic rainfall. Agriculture contributes to around 25% of GDP and provides employment for almost all rural households, with 70 to 80% of the population depending on farming and livestock for income and food production.

Food Insecurity in Eritrea

Because Eritrea relies heavily on unpredictable rainfall for agricultural production, the country remains one of Africa’s most food-insecure nations. The Eritrea Food Security Strategy reports that Eritrea produces only 60% of its national food requirements during favorable rainfall years. However, during drought years, production can fall to 20 to 25% of national food needs.

As a result, an estimated 66% of Eritreans, around 2.36 million people, cannot obtain sufficient food and essential goods to maintain a healthy standard of living. Approximately 37% of the population, or 1.31 million people, live below the food poverty line. Around half of all households require food assistance in usual years, and that figure rises to 80% during years of poor harvests.

Food insecurity in Eritrea has particularly severe consequences for children. The Global Nutrition Report estimates that 52.5% of children under five suffer from stunting, significantly above the African regional average of 30.7%. The Eritrea Food Security Strategy also found that 44% of children are underweight, while malnutrition causes anemia in nearly 50% of children.

Eritrea’s Human Development Index score of 0.503 places the country firmly in the low human development category.

Projects Combatting Food Insecurity

Despite these challenges, a range of initiatives are working to strengthen Eritrea’s food security from the ground up. Eritrea’s Ministry of Agriculture launched the Small and Productive Farm Plot initiative, locally known as Nirqah, under the national framework “Safe and Nutritious Food for Everyone, Everywhere.”

The Small and Productive Farm Plot’s concept is that each participating household works and manages a 1,000-square-meter plot, roughly a quarter of an acre, growing cereals, pulses, vegetables and sweet potatoes. Farmers then use crop residues to support livestock. This model is adapted to Eritrea’s diverse agroecological zones, allowing households to cultivate multiple crops throughout the year.

The early results are encouraging. During the first phase across the Maekel, Anseba, Debub and Gash-Barka regions, more than 12,000 households participated. These households produced yields of up to 970 kg of wheat, 950 kg of maize, 730 kg of sorghum and 420 kg of barley per 1,000-square-meter plot.

To date, farmers have cultivated more than 33,000 plots under the program. In the Gala-Nefhi region alone, the program reached 4,421 plots, while introducing 1,641 modern beehives and distributing 40,000 village chickens. In Serejeka, 4,700 farmers took part in the Small and Productive Farm Plot program. Looking ahead, Eritrea’s Ministry of Agriculture has set a national production target for 2028 aimed at balancing output across cereals (50%), pulses (25%) and oil crops (25%).

Environmental Threats

Alongside long-term agricultural development, Eritrea has contended with environmental threats. In December 2024, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture identified a serious escalation in desert locust activity along Eritrea’s Red Sea coastline. The locust outbreak threatened 50,000 hectares of cropland and 450,000 hectares of rangeland, land that supports the livelihoods of approximately 600,000 people.

More than 700,000 sheep and goats, as well as 200,000 cattle, faced losing access to their primary feed sources. The United Nations (U.N.) Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated $500,000 to FAO for a rapid response program. Between Jan. 16 and July 15, 2025, FAO worked alongside the Ministry of Agriculture and distributed 20,000 liters of Deltamethrin pesticide, 330 protective masks and 20 walkie-talkies to the ministry’s Plant Protection Unit.

By the end of the project, response teams had treated 21,450 hectares of infested land and safeguarded 38,770 tons of standing crops and 100,000 animals. Beyond treating infested farmland, the program directly reached 30,000 people, 55% of whom were women and girls. Radio broadcasts, community meetings and information sessions also reached another 600,000 people across five targeted regions.

The program trained more than 1,030 people, including 30 extension agents and 1,000 community volunteers, in locust monitoring, early detection and safe pesticide handling. Officials also reserved the remaining supplies for the 2025 locust season to strengthen future preparedness.

Water Infrastructure

Eritrea’s long-term investment in water infrastructure also underpins agricultural growth and food security. When Eritrea gained independence in 1993, the nation had approximately 130 dams, a figure that has since grown to 800. The expansion has enabled irrigation, reduced reliance on erratic rainfall and improved the stability of food production.

The dairy sector, constrained by fodder and water shortages resulting in a low-quality national herd, has historically underperformed. To combat this, Self Help Africa launched the DESIRA initiative, the Climate Smart Agriculture Research and Innovation Support for Dairy Value Chains program. This initiative works across the Debub, Anseba and Maekel Zobas districts and aims to improve dairy productivity and profitability, develop dairy value chains and increase national dairy consumption for nutritional benefits. The program expects to directly benefit 800 producer households, or around 4,000 people, along with approximately 50 academic and scientific staff.

Improving food insecurity in Eritrea also requires knowing where the needs are greatest. In 2025, the U.N. system in Eritrea supported the screening of 312,269 children ages 6 to 59 months for nutrition-related symptoms.

Looking Ahead

Food insecurity in Eritrea remains a challenge, shaped by decades of conflict, an unforgiving climate and limited resources. However, the projects taking shape across the country demonstrate how lasting solutions can emerge by building resilience from the ground up. These programs signal that Eritrea is taking meaningful steps toward a more food-secure future.

– Helen Turnbull

Helen is based in Cardiff, Wales and focuses on Good News for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan: Solving Poverty with Technology

Digital Family Card in KazakhstanKazakhstan has made strong progress in reducing poverty, but some families still face more difficulties than others. The World Bank reported that Kazakhstan’s poverty rate fell from 49.5% to 8.5% between 2006 and 2021. These advancements helped 5.9 million people leave poverty. However, poverty in rural areas remained higher than in cities, with 11.4% of the rural population living in poverty compared with 6.6% of residents in urban areas. The same report also found that children made up 40% of poor people in Kazakhstan in 2021. These gaps demonstrate why the Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan matters for families that may need faster and direct support.

How the Digital Family Card Works

The Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan is a government technology tool that helps identify families who may qualify for social support. The project emerged from joint work between Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Instead of making every family search for programs on their own, the system uses official data to help the government understand which families may be at risk.

UNDP says the Digital Family Card offers more than 30 services that people can access automatically, without needing to apply. This is important because vulnerable families may not always know what support exists or how to request it. UNDP also says the project focuses on groups such as single mothers raising more than three children, families with disabled members and orphaned children.

A System Built Around Family Needs

The Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan does not work like a regular plastic card. It functions more like a digital profile that helps the government understand a family’s situation. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says the system uses a scoring model of family well-being with 120 parameters from more than 20 data sources. These include areas such as social and economic conditions, education, health and housing.

This kind of system can make social assistance more targeted. For example, a family may need help because of low income, disability, unemployment or another difficult situation. The Digital Family Card can help the government see these risks earlier and connect people to support. ITU also explains that the system uses anonymized data for analytics, which helps protect personal information while still allowing the government to make decisions based on strong data.

From Pilot Program to Social Support Tool

Kazakhstan started testing the Digital Family Card in 2022. According to the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Labor launched the card in pilot mode for nine types of benefits and social payments. The plan included using the card to provide state guarantees in social protection, health care and education.

The Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan later became part of the country’s wider social policy. UNDP says Kazakhstan included the project in its Social Code. The system now has information on more than 6 million families. This information helps the government plan spending and deliver social assistance more accurately, using real-time data.

Making Benefits Easier to Access

One major goal of the Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan is to make government support easier to receive. UNDP explains that the system can assess family vulnerability without citizens needing to take the first step. If a person may qualify for support, the system can send an SMS asking for consent. If the person agrees, the social benefit, payment or other type of support can go directly to the person’s bank account.

This matters for people who may not have strong access to government internet platforms. Some families may live far from public offices, lack digital skills or not know which benefits match their situation. A text-message system can reduce confusion and make the process easier. It also helps the government reach people before their problems become more serious.

Recognized as a GovTech Solution

The Digital Family Card has received some recognition. In February 2024, the project won the 2024 GovTech Prize at the World Government Summit in Dubai. It won in the “Inclusive Digital Transformation” category. UNDP says the award recognized the card as a tool that improves access to government support for vulnerable people.

Kazakhstan has continued to use the card as part of its social support system. In July 2024, the Prime Minister’s official website reported that the government planned to use the Digital Family Card platform to monitor the well-being of families in five categories, from emergency and crisis levels to satisfactory and prosperous levels. This helps local officials track whether families’ living conditions improve or worsen.

Looking Ahead

The Digital Family Card in Kazakhstan does not solve poverty. Families still face problems linked to rural inequality, children’s poverty and access to services. However, the card helps address one important issue: accessibility of families to know programs. By using data, SMS notifications and automatic services, Kazakhstan is making social support easier to access. For vulnerable families, this digital tool can address many of their issues instantly.

– Mateo Alcocer

Mateo is based in West Hills, CA, USA and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Sustainable Heating Solutions with Mat Zero

Sustainable Heating SolutionsAccording to the latest U.N. reports, there were approximately 42.5 million refugees worldwide as of June 2025. Many have sought shelter in refugee camps or informal settlements where basic needs are scarcely secured and new challenges constantly arise. While many have fled their homes, others remain in armed conflict zones where livelihoods are under threat. Amid this turmoil, humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide continue to work with vulnerable communities to restore hope by working directly on the ground, securing funds, pressuring governments to take action and developing innovative and cost-effective solutions and technologies to save and improve the lives of refugees.

Innovative, Sustainable Heating Solutions

In 2025, Sri Hollema, a graduate student from Loughborough University, won the Women in Innovation award by Innovate U.K. for her work with Mat Zero, which is revolutionizing humanitarian heating through sustainable energy. What started as a university project, Mat Zero is now a growing global movement with products commercially available. With a humanitarian mission to provide warmth for all, Mat Zero donates a heating unit to a family in need for every product sold.

The UNHCR previously shared stories highlighting how much warmth can impact the lives of those living as refugees, in conflict zones or in informal settlements.

  • Warmth and Shelter: For many people, warmth means shelter. Many displaced families endure cold temperatures without adequate heating or shelter. Access to both can provide some comfort amid a life full of uncertainties.
  • Human Connection: Warmth nurtures human connection, especially for those in war zones where homes are damaged and exposed to harsh weather. Access to warmth can create space for community as people are more likely to visit.
  • A Slice of Hope: In many settlements, significant temperature drops during winter add to the challenges displaced communities face daily. Providing warmth during cold winter months can offer a slice of hope, which can go a long way.

The impact of having access to adequate heating extends beyond health concerns and many communities continue to be underserved in this area. With this in mind, Hollema founded Mat Zero.

Mat Zero

Mat Zero is a startup working on sustainable heating solutions to help the world’s vulnerable communities who have been forcibly displaced and continue to face challenges in meeting basic rights and needs, including access to warmth. Temporary settlements are heavily affected by severe weather conditions due to poor infrastructure. During winter, many communities face the cold, harsh winds and storms.

Founder Hollema developed the project with a simple belief: “Warmth is a human right, not a luxury.” Since its inception, Mat Zero has won and been shortlisted for multiple awards, including The Conduit’s Young Innovator Awards, the Santander X U.K. Awards in 2024 and Innovative U.K.’s Women in Innovation in 2025.

Its mission to “heat the person not the space” ensures underserved communities are kept warm in a safe and sustainable way. The mat comes with an energy hub and solar panels and relies on sustainable technology using carbon fiber heating, usable in all kinds of shelter. The group’s product ensures warmth comes in a safe form with no toxic fumes or risk of fires, an extremely important factor for crowded spaces.

The team continuously tests and improves the product’s effectiveness and recent field trials in Nepal showed 87% of users felt more comfortable at night. It does not stop there. Having tested the product’s effectiveness on the ground with clean, sustainable energy, Mat Zero can also benefit other humanitarian organizations.

Cost-Effective Solution for Humanitarian NGOs

Heating a household requires a lot of energy and can be costly. With its innovative heating solution, Mat Zero can potentially reduce the amount spent on providing heating by NGOs. Additionally, the heating mats are designed to last up to five years before the battery needs replacement.

Designed to offer clean and sustainable heating technology, Mat Zero provides a promising solution to ensure the world’s vulnerable communities stay warm and safe.

– Marine Baume

Marine is based in London, UK and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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Technology for Smallholder Farmers in India

Technology for Smallholder Farmers in IndiaA trader pulls up to a field in rural Maharashtra. He names a price for the onion harvest. The farmer, who has no way to check if it is fair, has always accepted. That is how it has worked for generations.

Not anymore.

Before the trader has finished talking, the farmer’s phone buzzes. A message in a WhatsApp group — 2,000 members, all onion growers in the same region — has just circulated today’s wholesale rate from the nearest mandi market. The trader’s offer is 30% below it. The farmer tells him to leave.

This single exchange captures what the technology for smallholder farmers in India revolution looks like. Not a Silicon Valley app. Not a government scheme. A free messaging platform, a few thousand farmers and information that was always available — just never to them.

The Middleman’s Greatest Weapon Was Ignorance

India’s agriculture sector employs 42% of the country’s workforce.

Yet the people doing that work have historically been the most informationally isolated. Smallholder and marginal farmers — those with less than two hectares of land — account for 86.2% of all farmers in India, but own just 47.3% of the arable land. They grow the country’s food from a position of almost zero leverage.

The trader knew the mandi price. The farmer did not. That single information gap — replicated across millions of transactions every harvest season — has quietly transferred billions of rupees from the people who grew the food to the people who simply moved it. WhatsApp groups are closing that gap in real time.

500,000 Farmers, Two Friends From Sangli

In 2012, two friends in Sangli, Maharashtra — Dr. Ankush Chormule and Amol Patil — noticed something simple: farmers around them had endless questions about pests, soil, crop timing and market prices and nowhere fast to get answers. WhatsApp had just launched. They started a group.

Seven years later, that group had grown into a network of more than 500,000 farmers across seven states. Their sugarcane group alone has 230,000 members from Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. Farmers report getting answers to crop questions within five to 15 minutes. Farmers in the network detected the arrival of fall armyworm pests in Maharashtra before it became a regional epidemic — weeks before any government alert.

“If something as simple as a video helps a farmer, it means his income goes up and his faith in the occupation is restored,” Patil told The Better India.

No funding. No offices. No staff. Just a phone and a willingness to answer messages.

One farmer in the network, Ramesh Jadhav of Nashik district, told local reporters that the group helped him identify a fungal infection in his tomato crop within hours of posting a photo — saving an estimated ₹80,000 (approximately $841) worth of produce he would otherwise have lost. Cases like his are now common across the network.

What the Data Says

The anecdotes are compelling. The data backs them up. Research from the GSMA found that 75% of active users of mobile agricultural services made measurable improvements to their farming practices — translating to 1.5 million farmers globally reporting better productivity outcomes.

The annual financing gap for smallholder farmers worldwide sits at $170 billion — a number that better market access directly chips away at.

Meanwhile, the infrastructure for scaling this further is already in place. India crossed 958 million active internet users in 2025, with rural India now accounting for 57% of that base — around 548 million people.

Rural internet users are growing at 16% annually, twice the pace of urban areas. By 2026, India is projected to have one billion smartphone users, with rural areas driving the majority of that growth. The phones are there. The farmers are using them. The question is whether anyone in power is paying attention.

The Problem With Official Solutions

For decades, governments and development organizations have tried to close the agricultural information gap through extension officers, radio broadcasts and expensive digital platforms. Many have produced modest results at enormous cost. WhatsApp groups are producing comparable — often greater — impact for free.

The reason is trust. A price update from a government portal is data. The same update forwarded by a cousin farming the same crop two villages over is intelligence. Technology for smallholder farmers in India works when it moves through existing social networks, not around them.

India’s farmers are not waiting for a solution to be designed for them. In Maharashtra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, they have already built one — on a platform that was never intended for agriculture, using nothing more than the collective knowledge of people who have worked the same land for generations.

The middleman still shows up. He just does not get the same answer he used to.

– Parthivee Mukherji

Parthivee is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and focuses on Technology and Solutions for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Unsplash

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Wind Energy Projects in Rural Oman and Economic Stabilization

Wind energy projects in rural Oman are transforming remote areas into renewable powerhouses, boosting local economies and stability.In the governorate of Dhofar in Oman’s fog-filled mountains, the traditional khareef (monsoon) winds have become a new form of currency. By 2026, the initiative to provide clean, low-cost electricity to remote communities will advance with the expansion of Dhofar Wind Farms. Civilians will witness the region’s most remote desert landscape transform into a renewable energy powerhouse, showcasing the power of wind energy projects in rural Oman.

The Power of Two: Dhofar 1 and Dhofar 2

The Dhofar 1 Wind Farm became the first utility-scale wind project in the Gulf. Developed by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) through an EPC consortium of GE Renewable Energy and Spain’s TSK, the wind farm aimed to generate enough electricity to supply 16,000 homes, meeting 7% of Dhofar Governorate’s total power demand.

By doing so, it offset carbon dioxide emissions annually and reduced reliance on natural gas for domestic power generation. In 2026, 150 km north of Salalah, 13 General Electric wind turbines totaling 50MW of power will operate. While the official estimate for homes powered is 16,000, the project was designed to potentially meet the consumption of up to 60,000 homes in ideal conditions.

The proven reliability of Dhofar 1 established a blueprint for scalable green infrastructure in the desert. Recognizing that clean energy could catalyze broader regional development, Oman accelerated its strategy. Building on the operational success of this initial project, the newly commissioned Dhofar 2 launched through a strategic agreement between Nama Power and Water Procurement and a consortium of leading energy firms.

In the spirit of Oman’s 2040 vision, a $112 million (RO 43 million) investment was accumulated. At double the number and capacity of Dhofar 1, Dhofar 2 adds another 125MW to the grid.

Together, these facilities now provide clean energy to more than 34,000 homes and offset 268,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. For the first time, rural southern Oman is seeing a future where its energy is as limitless as the wind.

The Local Impact: In-Country Value

The CEO of Nama Power, Ahmed bin Salm Al Abri, stated that Dhofar 2 will contribute to freeing an estimated 76 million cubic meters of natural gas annually. Said gas can now be diverted to more valuable industrial uses or exported to stabilize the national economy. The 36 wind turbines required for the completion of the project have arrived, with foundations completed and in-country value targets exceeded through these vital wind energy projects in rural Oman.

Oman utilizes a targeted procurement method called “Ring-Fencing.” By legally isolating specific components of the project’s supply chain, such as road construction, electrical wiring and long-term maintenance services, the government ensures that international conglomerates cannot bring in foreign subcontractors. Instead, these contracts are “fenced off” exclusively for Omani National Registered Suppliers (NRS) and local SMEs. This mechanism guarantees that a massive portion of the project’s capital remains within the governorate, transforming a standard construction site into a self-sustaining regional economic hub.

Not only is the government pushing the 2040 vision for an environmentally friendly economy, but it is also nurturing local businesses, shifting the Dhofar project into a regional economic hub. A “Mandatory List” of contractors was created, including more than 312 products that must be “Made in Oman.” For the Dhofar 2 expansion, reaching the 25% In-Country Value target allows at least $28 million of the $112 million investment to be paid directly to Omani companies for engineering, logistics and civil works.

Major energy players run “Vendor Development Programs” that provide technical training to small local businesses so they can meet international quality standards.

The Human Impact: “Omanization” and Training

For remote southern communities, this shift fundamentally alters daily life. Previously, local schools and health care clinics in the Dhofar highlands faced frequent power rationing due to the erratic nature of diesel transport. The integration of stabilized wind power means these vital facilities now operate with uninterrupted, 24-hour electricity.

According to the Nama Group’s sustainability frameworks, the Dhofar wind initiatives are serving as an active classroom for the next generation of Omani engineers. Specialized training modules have been deployed to equip local youth with highly technical competencies in wind turbine diagnostics, AI-driven grid management and automated robotics. This targeted capacity building has generated approximately 150 direct and indirect jobs within the region.

By shifting local expertise toward advanced green technologies, the project ensures that these newly skilled professionals secure sustainable careers designed to last throughout the 25-year operational lifespan of the wind farms, keeping the financial and intellectual rewards of the energy transition entirely within the local community.

Rural Stability

For generations, economic necessity forced rural Omani youth to abandon their home provinces, migrating en masse to the heavily centralized capital city of Muscat in search of employment. This traditional “urban drift” hollowed out rural communities and placed immense infrastructure strain on the capital. However, the specialized localized training mandated by the Dhofar wind farm initiatives is successfully turning the tide. Guided by the Oman National Spatial Strategy (ONSS) managed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, these projects serve as a key place-based delivery model to decentralize public investment and economic development across all 11 governorates.

By equipping local technical college graduates directly with elite skills in wind turbine diagnostics, AI-driven grid management and automated engineering, these projects provide lucrative, high-tech career trajectories without forcing families apart. Instead of fleeing the countryside, young Omani professionals are choosing to stay in the Dhofar governorate to anchor a newly emergent local green economy. This structural shift achieves a core priority of the ONSS framework: ensuring a balanced, resilient distribution of growth that keeps rural communities both demographically stable and economically vibrant.

Looking Ahead

In 2026, the Dhofar wind projects proved a transition of dual victory. In addition to creating sustainable energy, they have created investments in local companies and expanded the job market for the Omani youth. The Sultanate is ensuring an often difficult goal: driving long-term economic development through wind energy projects in rural Oman. The desert winds, once only regarded as a geographical consequence, have become the heart of Oman’s rural future.

– Celine Dib

Celine is based in London, UK and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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Zipline’s Drones and the Future of Health Care in Africa

Zipline’s DronesIn rural Rwanda, a child with severe malaria was transferred through multiple facilities, reaching Kabgayi District Hospital in critical condition after delays that can take hours due to long travel distances. The hospital urgently requested O+ pediatric blood from Kigali, a journey that would normally take about three hours by road in life-threatening cases.

Instead, one of Zipline’s drones arrived within minutes, dropping chilled blood by parachute at the hospital. Doctors began transfusion immediately, and the child stabilized, showing how rapid delivery replaces long transport delays and reduces the time between emergency need and treatment. It reflects a shift in rural healthcare, where distance once shaped outcomes, but fast delivery now bridges the gap between crisis and care.

Barriers to Health Care Access in Africa

Across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty, distance and weak infrastructure constrain healthcare access, with nearly 40% of people living in extreme poverty. In countries such as Rwanda, only about 25% of roads are paved, and heavy rains can isolate entire regions, disrupting ambulances, blood transport and emergency response when time is critical for survival.

These conditions are especially dangerous in emergencies like maternal hemorrhage, severe malaria, traumatic injuries and newborn complications, where rural clinics can diagnose patients but lack essential supplies such as blood, oxygen, vaccines, antibiotics or specialists, forcing transfers that can take hours—sometimes up to five hours for emergency blood delivery.

Healthcare worker shortages, underfunded systems and fragile supply chains further strain the situation, leaving many rural facilities staffed by only a few nurses. WHO recommended doctor-to-population ratios remain difficult to meet, while solutions like Zipline’s drone delivery system aim to reduce these delays by rapidly delivering critical medical supplies to remote facilities. 

Zipline’s Emergency Healthcare Access

Zipline is an autonomous drone delivery company providing on-demand access to critical healthcare supplies. It launched its first national-scale network in Rwanda in 2016, growing from 21 hospitals to about 450 facilities and reaching most of the population. Its mission is to ensure fast, reliable medical delivery regardless of terrain, traffic or weather.

Initially, it focused on delivering blood products to hospitals facing urgent shortages in Rwanda, then expanded to vaccines, cancer medications, insulin, infusion therapies and other essential medicines across thousands of facilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it also supported vaccine distribution to underserved communities, improving access and delivery speed.

 Its electric fixed-wing drones fly up to 300 kilometers on a single charge at about 70 mph. Healthcare workers place orders via phone, text, WhatsApp or online, pack supplies into “Zips” at distribution centers, then send them through autonomous aircraft using GPS/GNSS and RTK centimeter-level positioning. Zipline’s drones drop deliveries by parachute into precise zones, with real-time tracking and rapid drone reuse through midair recovery.

Zipline’s Transformational Impact

Founded in 2016 in Rwanda, Zipline has evolved from a single distribution center serving 21 hospitals into one of the world’s largest autonomous medical delivery networks. It now operates across Rwanda, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya and other African countries, fully integrated into national healthcare systems and running routine, large-scale medical logistics operations.

Zipline’s drones system has completed more than 2 million commercial deliveries and flown more than 135 million autonomous miles across multiple countries. In 2023 alone in Rwanda, it delivered 28,754 units of blood, with an average delivery time of 42 minutes from order placement to arrival, demonstrating consistent rapid-response logistics at national scale.

Evidence from health-system studies shows major performance gains: delivery times for critical supplies such as blood, vaccines and emergency medicines are reduced by more than 50%, often arriving in 30 to 45 minutes instead of hours or days. Associated research reports up to a 51% reduction in maternal mortality in Rwanda and 56% in Ghana, around 60% fewer stockouts of essential medicines and vaccines and up to a 37-percentage-point increase in immunization coverage in serviced regions.

Zipline reports impacting more than 458,000 lives by improving emergency access to essential medical supplies, emphasizing that aircraft technology accounts for only about 15% of system complexity, with the core advantage being scalable logistics infrastructure.

In November 2025, Zipline announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of State to expand across Africa, backed by up to $150 million in U.S. funding and up to $400 million in African government utilization fees, scaling from 5,000 to 15,000 health facilities and potentially reaching about 130 million additional people.

Zipline’s Future Impact on African Healthcare

Zipline’s future in African health care focuses on scaling networks powered by Zipline’s drones to serve hundreds of millions of people. Leadership projects reaching up to 130 million globally through centralized hubs integrated into national health systems, enabling rapid delivery of blood, vaccines, medicines and emergency supplies, especially in remote and low-infrastructure regions.

Advances in automation and aircraft performance drive expansion. New drones cut launch time from about 10 minutes to roughly 1 minute and increase capacity from around 50 to up to 500 flights per hub per day. Each hub aims to serve populations of up to 10 million, significantly expanding delivery reach beyond emergency use cases into routine healthcare logistics, diagnostic transport and disaster-response operations, while reducing medical stock-outs and improving healthcare access across Africa.

– Malak Kamel

Malak is based in Amman, Jordan and focuses on Technology and Solutions for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

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Lady Health Workers Treat Postpartum Depression in Pakistan

Postpartum Depression in PakistanAs many as one in four new mothers in low- and middle-income countries experience perinatal depression, which includes depression during and after pregnancy and rates in South Asia are among the highest in the world. Yet most affected women will never see a mental health professional. Pakistan has fewer than one psychiatrist per 100,000 people, far below the global average. Postpartum depression in Pakistan is one of the most under-treated drivers of household poverty and a program built around community health workers, rather than specialists, is helping to close that gap.

The Weight of Poverty for Pakistani Women

Poverty shapes everyday life for a large share of Pakistan’s population. The World Bank estimates that about 22.5% of Pakistanis lived below the national poverty line in fiscal year 2025, down from 25.3% the year before, with the September 2025 Pakistan Poverty, Equity and Resilience Assessment warning that earlier gains have been eroded by COVID-19, inflation, the 2022 floods and macroeconomic stress. Roughly 61% of the population lives in rural areas where formal mental health services are almost entirely absent. Poverty affects women differently than men.

In many low-income households, women carry the majority of unpaid caregiving and domestic work, have less independent income and less decision-making power over health spending and are more likely to be excluded from formal employment. Pakistan’s female labor force participation rate stood at around 24% in 2024, one of the lowest in South Asia. For a new mother struggling with untreated depression, the consequences ripple outward: lost wages, weaker bonds with a newborn, poorer infant nutrition and a tighter intergenerational cycle of disadvantage.

Postpartum Depression in Pakistan

Depression during and after pregnancy is one of the most common complications of childbirth and its effects reach beyond the mother. Research has linked maternal depression to pre-term birth, child under-nutrition and stunting, creating consequences that pass from one generation to the next. For families already living in poverty, the burden compounds. A mother struggling silently may find it harder to care for her infant, maintain household income or seek health services.

The stigma around mental illness deepens the problem. In a country where mental health care is concentrated in cities and where talking about depression often carries shame, rural and low-income women are the least likely to receive support and the most likely to be told their symptoms are simply part of motherhood.

Therapy Without Therapists

The response is the Thinking Healthy Program, a structured psychological intervention based on cognitive behavioral therapy and designed specifically for delivery by nonspecialists. It was developed in Pakistan by Professor Atif Rahman and colleagues and tested in a landmark cluster randomized controlled trial published in The Lancet in 2008. That trial, conducted with community health workers in rural Rawalpindi, roughly halved the risk of perinatal depression among mothers and improved infant health outcomes. The results drew international attention.

In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Thinking Healthy manual and recommended the approach for treating perinatal depression in low-resource settings worldwide. The model has since been adapted across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The program works because it does not depend on scarce specialists. Community health workers are trained to help mothers recognize negative thinking patterns, build supportive routines and strengthen family support, during the same home visits they already make for maternal and child health.

Building on the Lady Health Worker Network

In Pakistan, that delivery network already exists. The Lady Health Worker Program, launched in 1994, employs more than 100,000 women who provide primary health care to communities across the country, with a focus on maternal and child health in rural areas. Each worker is recruited from the community she serves, which helps build the trust that mental health support requires. A 2025 study in the Journal of Global Health confirmed that contact with Lady Health Workers during pregnancy and after birth is associated with stronger uptake of maternal and child health services. That existing relationship makes the workforce a natural vehicle for the Thinking Healthy Program.

Researchers have also tested versions delivered by trained peer volunteers from the community rather than government health workers. Indeed, a 2025 trial published in Nature Medicine, conducted in rural Rawalpindi, found that technology-assisted peer-delivered Thinking Healthy was as effective as the standard WHO version in sustaining remission of perinatal depression, offering a way to extend care where health workers are stretched thin. The work is led by the Human Development Research Foundation, an Islamabad-based research organization. Challenges remain. A 2024 analysis found that Lady Health Worker coverage in Sindh province reached only 43% of the population, with wide district-level gaps. Expanding mental health care depends on first strengthening and sustaining the network that delivers it.

Looking Ahead

Postpartum depression in Pakistan remains widespread and under-treated and no single program will resolve it. Yet the Thinking Healthy Program shows that effective care does not require a psychiatrist in every village. By training community health workers and peers to deliver evidence-based therapy, Pakistan has built a model that is both affordable and proven. With sustained investment in the Lady Health Worker network, treatment for postpartum depression can become a route out of a hidden cycle of poverty for the rural and low-income mothers who need it most.

– Amna Al Harrazi

Amna is based in Dubai, UAE and focuses on Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr