On May 17, 2024, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Banyan Global as the winner of the 2023 USAID Small Business of the Year at the 15th Annual Small Business Conference in Washington, D.C.

The Small Business of the Year Award recognizes the creative, unique, and extraordinary performance of one small business that has significantly and directly impacted core USAID mission objectives and requirements over the past year, demonstrating extraordinary customer service, cost, time, and personnel savings for USAID, and innovative programming ideas.

“On behalf of the entire Banyan Global team, we are truly honored to receive this award and recognition by USAID.  We would like to thank USAID/ Nigeria for nominating us and USAID’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Businesses (OSDBU) for selecting us.” 

Meaghan Smith, President and CEO

Banyan Global was nominated by USAID/Nigeria for its work as the prime implementer of the Health Workforce Management (HWM) Activity. The purpose of the HWM Activity is to establish a cost‐effective, well-trained, and motivated health workforce, particularly in targeted rural and remote areas, in order to contribute to greater health system responsiveness and improved health outcomes, especially among women and children. Banyan Global’s work on the HWM Activity in Nigeria exemplifies its approach to development:

1. Locally-led development is critical for achieving sustainable results. In Nigeria, Banyan Global partnered with local organizations through a grants under contract program and co-created with regulatory bodies and state and federal governments to catalyze improvements in human resources for health. This led to the revision and roll-out of the national pre-service nurse and midwifery curricula and the community health worker curricula, and it is driving quality improvements across 300 pre-service health training institutions and impacting over 500,000 community health workers, nurses, and midwives and over 160,000 community health worker and nursing students.
2. Banyan Global applies a gender and social inclusion and inclusive development lens to all of its work.  In Nigeria, Banyan Global created a scholarship program for over 600 vulnerable young women.
3. Sustainable development does not happen without the private sector. In Nigeria, the Banyan Global team mobilized $4.7 million in innovative public and private financing to address accreditation needs of pre-service health training institutions.
4. Digital development improves data for decision-making and magnifies results.  In Nigeria, Banyan Global worked with state partners to roll out human resources for health information systems in seven states and the Federal Capital Territory.  

“Our work in Nigeria demonstrates that U.S. small businesses have the commitment, ingenuity, and flexibility to implement technically challenging projects in complex environments,” said Smith. “I want to thank USAID for recognizing this and giving us the opportunity.”

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Banyan Global is a women-owned small business founded on the principle that integrating expertise and experience from the development community and private sector will achieve a broad and lasting impact. The firm operates seamlessly across five practice areas: health, economic growth, gender, youth, and monitoring, evaluation and learning.