Join the Futuremakers Forum 2022
How can we, together, put young people into the driving seat and create the financial systems they need to achieve success? Nearly 1 in 4 young female entrepreneurs say they don’t control their own money; 75% of young people with business bank accounts say they assumed they weren’t eligible for any further financial products and […]
Tackling inequality – an integral component to long-term business success
Sustainability has become mainstream. Today more than ever, business is expected to take action to tackle the climate emergency, bring greater sustainability into value chains and be held accountable for these efforts. Capital markets, consumers, and governments are all in agreement that sustainability is the only long-term success for business – as well as for […]
Why decolonizing philanthropy is important now more than ever and how to achieve it
In the nonprofit world, organizations often talk about bringing community members in to have a seat at the table. This is especially true as organizations now work to meaningfully respond to persisting inequity in the nonprofit space. However, at The InteRoots Initiative – a United States-based philanthropic organization that works both domestically and globally – […]
Prioritising engaging with workers and other stakeholders for human rights
Ensuring corporate respect for human rights is fundamentally about people, revolving around how companies become aware of, prevent, mitigate and remediate actual and potential negative impacts on the rights of individuals and communities. Respecting the rights of these people can only be done effective by seeking to understand their experiences and perspectives. In other words, […]
Corruption and climate vulnerability – A devastating relationship
Released last month, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2020 was analysed with a particular focus on corruption and its effect on the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research shows that corruption undermines public health systems and democratic institutions, damaging governments’ ability to respond effectively and democratically to public health crises like COVID-19. The acute crisis of COVID-19 has made it […]
Supporting a new generation of green and social entrepreneurs
Throughout our global network, we are seeing more and more young entrepreneurs build businesses that deliver profit with purpose. They are the new generation entrepreneurs working to solve some of the greatest environmental and social challenges of our time and will play a vital role in creating a more equitable and sustainable world for us […]
GBV and Domestic Violence in Ukraine and How Businesses Can Help
This in-depth article on Gender-Based violence in Ukraine was commissioned by Business Fights Poverty, with the support of Avon. Domestic and gender-based violence is a phenomenon of constant concern in the world. Fighting it is the focus of many international organizations, human rights defenders, and socially responsible businesses. Unfortunately, as a reasonably stable phenomenon (i.e. […]
Engendering Regeneration for Supply Chains that Last
In a decade marked by climate shocks, pandemia, and global interconnection, the call to #InvestInOurPlanet is top of mind for individuals and companies – not just for Earth Day but for the future of life and business as we know it. Food and beverage corporations sense the urgency to transition to more renewable sources for […]
The path to living wages for low-paid workers worldwide
Recent crises worldwide have highlighted how fragile our global supply chains can be when disaster strikes. Whether it’s Covid-19, climate or conflict-related, these crises underscore the importance of ensuring the people who produce our goods and food earn enough to protect their livelihoods from shocks. At Fairtrade, we are committed to achieving living wages for […]
Inclusive business models can help close the gender gap
Even a successful inclusive business model does not automatically eliminate long-held prejudice and bias against women. “Supporting women in agriculture is the right and smart thing to do” – this has been our motto at GROW Liberia for the last five years. But what does this mean in practice? How do you convince partners – many of whom […]
Race to the top: How we pushed supermarkets to take human rights seriously
“Five kilos of extra beans on each worker’s table,” says Joseraldo Medeiros, a union leader in Brazil’s fruit exporting region of Rio Grande do Norte. “If we hadn’t fought for this, workers would not have received [the equivalent of] five kilos of beans in their salary.” The five kilos of beans cost 40 reais, or around $8, […]
Tackling global warming through the promotion of clean cooking energy in Ghana
Globally, over 1.1 billion people live without access to electricity and almost 3 billion people lack clean cooking facilities (SNV, 2022). The world’s poor are continuously affected by the low availability of sustainable and reliable energy, with increasing difficulty in remote areas. Modern energy services are crucial to human well-being as well as to countries’ […]
It’s time to collect more and better gender-disaggregated supply chain data
The reality, however, is that most supply chain data is largely gender blind, meaning it views workers as a homogenous group. This lack of gender-disaggregation limits our understanding of certain risks, disparities, and inequities that may be gender sensitive. It also impedes our ability to determine whether supply chain programmes and initiatives are having equal outcomes […]
Comic Relief and Jersey Overseas Aid are making a difference
As Red Nose Day 2022 returned on Friday 18th March, we wanted to celebrate some of the incredible work our partners are doing to help change lives in communities around the world. We have been working with Jersey Overseas Aid (JOA) since 2018, running a jointly funded four-year programme which aims to bring about financial […]
Using gender data to translate inclusion strategies into programming reality
At GROW Liberia we love data! And as an economic development programme we must love data: we count the number of jobs created, incomes improved, number of partners, amount of fertiliser sold and on goes the list. Data is essential for accountability to funders, in our case Sida. It is also essential for iterative, results-driven […]
How the business community is stepping up in support of Ukrainian children and their families
The war in Ukraine has taken a harrowing toll on children. Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 1 .5 million children have fled the country and millions more are caught up in the escalating violence. Like all children driven from their homes by war and conflict, Ukrainian children arriving in neighbouring countries are […]
Empowering women and inspiring youth: Reflections from Stephanie Lamma Ewi
A new wave of corporate sustainability is approaching; one in which conventional corporate ‘sustainability’ strategies are set to be replaced by new levels of ambition centred around creating a ‘just and regenerative’ future. Guided by a new north star – an economy that sustains the wellbeing of all and the capacity of our natural world […]
A Fairer Future for All Means Gender Equality Now
Women have long been the backbone of our planet’s agricultural production. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that women today make up 60 to 80 percent of the farmers present in non-industrialized countries and that up to 70 percent of agricultural labour in some countries comes from women alone. This is a staggering number. […]
Turning an Onboarding Exercise into a Knowledge Hub for Gender Mainstreaming
When I joined iDE as the gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) manager in April of 2021, it had been years since I’d worked in the international development sector. In truth, I was feeling like a fish out of water. During my onboarding process, I learned all about iDE and our founder Paul Polack who […]
What is a value chain? And why you should care.
Several years ago the women of Bihani Dairy, a Heifer-supported agricultural cooperative in southwestern Nepal, had an idea: Provide a collection center for milk produced by the area’s dairy farmers, an enterprise move that would reduce waste and offer farmers, who were otherwise forced to sell as quickly as possible for below-market fees, a chance to create […]