Powering entrepreneurs
to end poverty.
iDE Canada creates income and livelihood opportunities in developing countries around the world. We invest in local entrepreneurship, building businesses with a focus on agriculture and sanitation. With access to the right products, services and advice, farmers can transform their small farms into small businesses. With access to research and development, sanitation business owners can produce the life-saving products their customers want.
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Our Initiatives
Innovate for Impact
iDE’s founder, Paul Polak, practiced and preached the importance of starting with people. With your support, local iDE teams use Human Centered Design to engage deeply with the people and communities we serve.
Innovation Fund Projects
Cambodia
| The Paul Polak Innovation Fund
Transform Smallholder Farming
Small-scale farmers grow 80% of the food available in rural areas but often live in poverty. Your support helps farmers increase their incomes by ensuring they have access to markets, high-quality seed and affordable irrigation.
Agricultural Projects
ETHIOPIA
| Agriculture resilience and dignity
NEPAL
| Dealing with new pests
Stop Diarrhea
Diarrhea kills over half a million under-5 children every year – more than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined. Diarrhea deprives many millions of children of the nutrients they need to reach their full physical and mental potential.
Sanitation Projects
GHANA
| Selling toilets to poor household
See More Projects
Recent News
Impact in the face of crisis
This is how iDE Mozambique staff describe their work in the past few months. They relied heavily on funding from the U.S. government for staffing and program costs, which was suddenly cut earlier this year. In the face of these challenges, the team has shown remarkable resilience and optimism — a positive attitude that is…
How entrepreneurs in Vietnam are cleaning up plastic waste
Vietnam’s lush coastline and winding rivers draw millions each year — but look closer, and you’ll see grocery bags tangled in mangroves, plastic bottles drifting along canals, and shorelines littered with debris. Every year, an estimated 300,000 metric tons of plastic end up in waterways and beaches — that’s the equivalent of 30,000 garbage trucks…
Your support is sweet like honey!
Your joyful support of Her Time to Grow is helping women in Ghana feel at ease trying a new, and slightly nerve-wracking way to earn income — beekeeping. Three white beehives sit in the shade beneath some trees in the rural village of Kalbeo. As you approach the hives, you can smell the sweetness of…
The garbage truck is music to their ears!
The cheery jingle might make you think the ice cream truck is coming, but it’s actually a garbage truck — decorated with blue birds and pink flowering trees. The jingle signals it’s arrival. Before 2024, the rural people of Boribo district in central Cambodia didn’t have garbage pick-up. So, they resorted to burning, burying, or…
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Our Partners
iDE Canada creates income and livelihood opportunities in developing countries around the world. We invest in local entrepreneurship, building businesses with a focus on agriculture and sanitation.
We would like to thank the Government of Canada and Manitoba Council for International Cooperation for their generous financial support.
From donkey carts and treadle pumps to solar pumps and smartphone applications, iDE has made it their mission to power a revolution for farmers in some of the world’s most challenging markets. I have seen the incredible impact of new solutions designed with and for small farmers.
Len Penner, iDE Canada Board Chair (2020)
“This change inspired me to share the knowledge and experience I got with other farmers in my community and I will help them to start cultivating improved varieties and vegetables with irrigation during the dry season.”
Beletu Bacha Kimbibit, Ethiopia
Simon Tuuteug’s joy is contagious. His profits this past year have soared and his small farm in Ghana is supporting his family in ways it never has before. He says, “I am very happy to work with iDE – they showed me new ways to farm and now I am seeing the good results.”
Simon Tuuteug, Ghanaian farmer (2015)
“My grandfather started donating to iDE in the early 80s when the organization was just finding its way. We continue to support the organizations that were important to him and we understand why he is so passionate about iDE and the difference it makes.”
Marlon Kuhl, third generation iDE supporter (2018)
Getting involved with iDE in the Sama Sama program in Ghana has been both exciting and satisfying for us. It really feels good to make a difference in the world by helping bring positive changes to families in rural Ghana!
