Social Impact Blog

Imagine you are sitting down to enjoy a delicious meal at your favorite restaurant. Have you ever wondered how many workers helped get that meal to your plate? Think about the farmers who grew the food, the pickers and processors who harvested and packaged the food, distributors who transported the food, the cooks who prepared the food, and the wait staff who served you the meal. These food workers are part of a multi-billion dollar industry that accounts for one-sixth of all jobs in the United States. And while the U.S. food and agriculture sector is among the most productive in the world, the costs and benefits of this system are inequitably divided.

If you have ever worried about your own sick child, you can appreciate how frantic, desperate and helpless you would feel if you lived in the handful of countries where improvements in under 5 mortality have slowed to a trickle. If you are a mother in one of these countries, you are justified in your grave desperation, because half of the kids that die do so from the very mundane afflictions of diarrhea, pneumonia and measles. Another 40% are lost from neonatal causes that are also largely preventable. While globally we have reduced under 5 mortality by nearly 35% since 1990, nearly 7.6 million little ones still die each year.

Martha Montes lives one of the poorest neighborhoods of Cartagena, Colombia. She has a small, two room house with a cement slab floor where 5 people live and in the back she has a small garden. She had been part of the 18% of Cartagena’s unemployed poor until the Clinton Foundation identified her as a potential collaborator to serve the blossoming tourism business. How, exactly, could Martha plug into one of the greatest booms in Cartagena’s history? She is part of an innovative, collective effort spearheaded by the Clinton Foundation to develop local supply chains for many products central to the growing hospitality industry, such as fish, textiles, herbs and candies.