Economic Growth - US Department of State

Economic Growth


Students from the "Honduran Dream" project listen to a lecture on developing their own business plans. (U.S. Embassy photo)

SUCCESS STORY:

Honduran Dream Project Fosters Bright Futures

“This program gives us an opportunity, a way to show we can develop good jobs and good products,” said one student participating in the innovative “Honduran Dream” project. The Honduran Dream is a new outreach partnership project of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras and the business community of San Pedro Sula. Through the project, launched in April, students from 12 public high schools were invited to compete for $5,000 in startup funds to create their own small business.(complete text)

Trickle Up Helps Indian Entrepreneur Start Small Business

Ajmeri Bibi said that once she never left the house. Now she knows how to use money and build a business and, in addition, is a community leader. When asked what she would do if she received a small business grant from Trickle Up, a New York-based nongovernmental organization, she said she would buy a secondhand bicycle rickshaw so her husband no longer would need to rent one. (complete text)

Burkina Faso Artisan Cooperative Yields Export Opportunities

The artists' business group Village Artisanal de Ouagadougou (VAO) has perfected the notion of one-stop shopping. Its campus, in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, houses a boutique, a café and workshops for more than 500 artisans who create a wide variety of handicrafts and home décor. The number of artisans under its roof makes VAO the leading producer of handicrafts in Burkina Faso.(complete text)

Senegalese Women Combine Farming Methods for Unique Solutions

Outside the town of Ndioum, on the banks of the Senegal River near the Mauritanian border, six women's groups have learned a new way of combining rice and tilapia growing that is reversing the effects of overfishing and pollution. Rice fields must be flooded constantly until the grains can be harvested. Previously the women had to carry water from the river to the fields in jugs to keep the rice sufficiently watered. But now, with a pump provided by U.S.-based Counterpart International that more easily brings river water to the fields, the women have a unique way to use water in the fields to combine the growing of rice and the growing of tilapia, a nutrient- and protein-rich fish that is a favorite of people in northern Senegal. (complete text)