RURAL LIVELIHOODS Because poverty is more prevalant in rural communities, the programs of GP’s rural livelihood partners may be among the most effective ways of addressing global poverty. They are microfinance organizations and cooperatives that offer a holistic package of innovative services to help farmers increase their income. They provide targeted training and specialized loans timed with the crop cycle. They help clients access specialty markets that pay more, such as organic coffee. They create alliances to help their clients surpass the barriers of being in small-scale agriculture.

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT There are few things more powerful than getting economic resources into the hands of women in the developing world. As women gain resources they invest in areas such as health and education that advance their families’ future. They gain confidence and voice. They become community leaders. Women’s empowerment is GP’s most cross-cutting impact area. More than 70 percent of the borrowers served by our partners are women, and most of our partners lend to women through the village bank model, which offers borrowers a powerful support network, training forum and opportunity to become community leaders.

Investing for ImpactGlobal Partnerships targets five critical innovation areas to counter poverty

Global Partnerships’ mission is to expand opportunity for people living in poverty.

www.globalpartnerships.org

SPRING 2012

Zara Carrión is a widow and mother who rises early to work on her modest coffee farm near Cajamarca, Peru.

She is also a member of Aprocassi, a coffee cooperative funded by Global Partnerships. With Aprocassi’s help she is now a certified organic grower, which means she can charge 30 percent more for her beans. Aprocassi provides one-on-one technical assistance and workshops, helping Zara improve her yields and the quality of her product. Aprocassi also helps her buy critical supplies such as seeds and fertilizer at a lower cost.

How can Global Partnerships fuel more stories like Zara’s—people in poverty who, with the right kind of support, can build the skills and resources they need for long-term success? That’s the question that has led to our evolution from a microfinance-oriented investor to a social investor supporting innovative solutions in five specific areas found to be effective against poverty in Latin America. Our microfinance and cooperative partners are selected because of their focus in one or more of these five impact areas: micro-entrepreneurship, health services, rural livelihoods, green technology and women’s empowerment.

Continued

HEALTH SERVICES Poor health and poverty are closely linked: If you’re sick you’re more likely to become poor, and if you’re poor you’re more likely to get sick. The good news is that microfinance institutions and cooperatives—by virtue of reaching large numbers of impoverished people on a regular basis—are in a unique position to shift this poverty-health dynamic.

Global Partnerships is investing in health services in two ways. One, we make loans to partner organizations because they provide essential, high-impact health services to their clients. And two, beyond the financial investment, GP is directly working with several partners to develop models for providing low-cost, high-impact health care to impoverished people.

GREEN TECHNOLOGY This is an emerging area of investment for GP. We are researching opportunities for investing in promising green technologies that could address critical environmental problems such as climate change while benefiting poor households in multiple ways. For example, products like solar panels and lights can reduce carbon emissions while bringing electricity to those who can’t afford it. And clean, efficient cookstoves—a low-polluting alternative to the wood cookstoves used by poor households across Latin America—would reduce air pollution and carbon emissions, promoting better health, especially among children.

MICRO-ENTREPRENEURSHIP Most microfinance institutions and cooperatives with credit programs already deliver standard orientation on credit policies and loan practices. Micro-entrepreneurship speaks to programs that go beyond this foundation to deliver substantive, targeted education for people in poverty. An example is COMIXMUL, an all-women cooperative in Honduras and GP partner, which has created a comprehensive training curriculum for their members to help them improve their job skills. Members can start by studying the basics in household finance and graduate with certification in specific skills like baking, jewelry-making and salon services.

Investing for Impact, continued

Impoverished people, particularly women, lack access to basic health care and the information to help them make better health decisions. Among the poor in Latin America, healthcare is often sought only when symptoms are very serious, despite the fact that many of the conditions and diseases that affect their lives are preventable and treatable if identified early. With over 94 million people in Latin America living on less than $2 a day, the need for affordable health services and education is enormous.

“For years our clients have asked us to provide them with health services,” reports Carine Roenen, Director of Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest pro-poor microfinance institution. “In 2010, 15 percent of the poor market women served by Fonkoze left our program because of expenses related to health issues”

Our goal is to create models that directly

and sustainably bring essential health

services to more than 100,000 people,

most of them low income women.

Progress against Poverty: Health Services for 100,000rough roads to rural and semi-urban communities to provide financial services to their clients, often groups of women in isolated locations. The very health services that can have the greatest impact for those living in poverty can be delivered at a low cost through partner networks: education about nutrition, sanitation and chronic disease prevention; community pharmacies that sell basic medicines at reduced cost; and clinics to screen for potentially life-threatening diseases, such as cervical cancer.

The 2011 partnership with Fonkoze follows a similar initiative launched in 2009 with Pro Mujer in Nicaragua, a microfinance and development organization, and PATH, a global health leader. As a result of this initiative, more than 7,000 clients currently have access to improved health education and services that are projected to reach more than 70,000 clients over the next three years.

As this work goes on, we’re learning how packages of health services can be customized with specific services to meet the needs of clients. For example, from performing regular screening of clients, Pro Mujer in Nicaragua learned that many of their clients were diabetic or pre-diabetic, and adjusted training to emphasize management of the conditions through weight loss and better nutrition. In contrast, nutritional education provided by Fonkoze in Haiti may focus on how to increase body mass and prevent anemia as many clients suffer from malnutrition.

With health initiatives successfully implemented in Nicaragua and underway in Haiti, GP staff are evaluating new potential partnerships in Honduras, Ecuador and beyond. Our goal for the next three years is to create models that directly and sustainably bring essential health services to more than 100,000 people, most of them low income women, with the potential to scale to reach millions.

In November 2011, Global Partnerships launched a partnership with Fonkoze and Linked Foundation, a California-based private foundation, to introduce a package of essential health services to more than 50,000 Fonkoze clients—poor and ultra-poor women throughout Haiti—over the next three years. “Working with Global Partnerships and Linked Foundation will reduce our clients’ vulnerability to disease and health-related economic shocks,” explains Roenen. “It’s like a dream come true.”

GP’s partners—microfinance institutions and cooperatives—are in a unique position to provide health-related information and services. Every day, hundreds of loan officers from GP’s thirty-five partners travel

2009 GP’s partnership with PATH and Pro Mujer leads to an innovative project piloting improved health services for impoverished women in León, Nicaragua.

2012 As the Pro Mujer in Nicaragua health model rolls out to 20,000 clients, GP’s partnership with Fonkoze will begin delivering services to 52,500 in Haiti.

2014 Leveraging the success of the first two partnerships and securing additional partners, GP brings health services to more than 100,000 people.

INSIDE:

Investing for Impact

Health Services for 100,000

1932 FIRST AVENUE, SUITE 400 SEATTlE, WA 98101

206.652.8773

NON-PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID

SEATTLE, WA PERMIT NO. 6624

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dean C. AllenPeter BladinBill ClappPaula ClappSteve DavisKurt DelBeneWalter EuyangCurtis B. FraserMike T. GalgonEnrique Godreau IIIBert Green, M.D.Gregg JohnsonTessa KeatingMatthew McBradyEddie PoplawskiJane StonecipherMaggie Walker

PRESIDENT & CEO

Rick Beckett

Photo credits: Chris Megargee

TRAVEl WITH US

We’ll begin our trip in the central highland town of Cochabamba where our partners combine business training and microcredit to help women earn a successful living.

Then we’ll travel to the capital city of La Paz high up in the Andes mountains where a GP partner is helping small farmers to improve their lives through specialized agricultural loans.

Along the way we’ll learn about Bolivia’s struggles as South America’s poorest country, experience the richness and strength of its indigenous culture, and sightsee along the beautiful Andean cordillera and Lake Titicaca.

PartnerTrip to Bolivia: April 21 - 29

www.globalpartnerships.org/partnertrips

CHARLIE’S PRODUCECOBALT MORTGAGE

CONCURCORNERSTONE ADVISORS, INC.

GROUNDS FOR CHANGEHUNTINGTON STEELE

KPMG LLP

iGRACIAS!

Special thanks to our 2011 Business of Hope Corporate Partners

LAIRD NORTON COMPANYLAIRD NORTON TYEE

MICROSOFT CORPORATIONRUSSELL INVESTMENTS

SEATTLE UNIVERSITYTHEO CHOCOLATE

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