14 Building Strong Systems for Healthy Communities

president’s letter. The poet William Blake urged his readers to see the world in a grain of sand. At the Rockefeller Foundation, we see the world in the lives of every individual impacted by our work. This 2010 Annual Report tells the stories of eight such individuals. They come from different backgrounds and different continents, but their personal struggles and life experiences bring into stark relief some of the most pressing global challenges we face. From food insecurity in Africa to economic insecurity in America, from cities grappling with the impact of climate change and the need for sustainable transportation, the stories in this report will give you our perspective on how critical global issues impact individual lives. Of course, these stories also illustrate solutions the Rockefeller Foundation brought to bear—and in many cases pioneered—in 2010. Here, you will read about weather-indexed crop insurance and mobile health kiosks in Africa, interactive online tools and pilot infrastructure projects in Asian cities. From public edu-cation campaigns and policymaking advice at the state and federal levels in the U.S., to path-breaking methods of harnessing private capital for social gain, the breadth of our work in 2010 was matched only by the scope of the challenges the world faced