Solutions Writing Internship for International Development at UC Davis

Research in the field of international development seeks solutions for many of the most pressing and challenging problems people face in the world, including poverty, food insecurity and conflict. Telling the stories of this work and its impact can play a powerful role in raising awareness about these challenges but also the growing body of tested and proven solutions.

Through it's Solutions Writing Internship, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience at UC Davis has hosted undergraduate student writers to tell stories about solutions that could have a positive impact worldwide.

Intern Features

rice farm in Nepal

Moving Beyond the Index with Financial Tools to Manage Risk in Nepal

  • by Simone Nelson
A new effort led from UC Davis is seeking to build on prior USAID-supported research in Nepal to deliver an innovative set of financial tools to small-scale women farmers to reduce their risk of losing crops to weather- and climate-related shocks.
Nepal rural community

Empowering Women in Nepal with Goats, Training and Community

  • by Simran Kalkat
Focusing development programs on women can have impacts that go beyond income and poverty. In Nepal, a Feed the Future research team found that a prominent asset transfer and training program had important impacts on women's empowerment.
satellite image

Leveraging Machine Learning to Improve Livestock Insurance for Pastoralist Families

  • by Andrea Esquetini
NDVI has been commonly used to build index insurance, a type of insurance that in the past decade has protected tens of thousands of pastoralist families in eastern Africa from drought. Now, a new technology may be on the brink of beating NDVI on predicting forage quality, and it comes from an entirely different field.
Chickpea Innovation Lab at UC Davis

The Challenge of Taking Chickpea Innovations from the Lab to the Field

  • by Brandon Jetter
By transforming how chickpeas can withstand a complex set of problems, beyond just drought, researchers hope to aid smallholder farmers. But ultimately, getting these improved varieties to farmers in the field is a complex task that requires work beyond just the laboratory.