How Business Can Help Address Youth Employability
Barclays is a transatlantic bank with a history of supporting young people to gain skills for employability. Between 2012 and 2015, we delivered skills training to over 5.7 million disadvantaged young people and in 2016 we helped a further 1.7m people gain employability skills. During this time, we have increasingly focused on measuring and understanding […]
How Can Companies Harness the SDGs to Strengthen Smallholder Supply Chains?
Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a significant value creating opportunity for business. According to the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, achieving the SDGs will create up to US$12 trillion of market opportunities[1] for companies across the four economic systems studied in its landmark report Better Business, Better World (food and agriculture, cities, […]
Improving Services in Low Income Markets
For businesses selling products and services at the base of the pyramid, understanding low-income consumers and the choices they make is critical to meeting customer needs, boosting sales, and delivering real value. Inclusive business Dr. Consulta run a network of medical centres that provide primary and secondary care in São Paulo, Brazil. With over 85,000 […]
Black Swans and the Future of Energy
Energy experts now confidently predict that by 2040, solar and wind will drive no less than 60% of global power; natural gas will replace the lion’s share of the burning of coal, and the market for electric cars will soar. Nassim Taleb, on the other hand, questions the ability of experts to predict just about […]
Bridging Gaps: Cross-sector Collaboration is the Future of Sustainable Business
The world faces growing problems—natural resource scarcity and climate change, along with anti-trade and migration movements—that require more nimble policies, institutions and investments for sustainable development. Yet, current approaches are hobbled because they operate in silos across sectors. When stakeholders and policymakers operate in silos, maximizing one interest at the expense of everyone else’s, the […]
REGISTER NOW: Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2017, 10/11 July
A Cup Half Full: Collaborating for Water Security
Water is something most of us take for granted. We turn on the tap and it flows. We buy it in bottles. We use it to grow gardens and irrigate food crops. Yet it’s amongst the most precious natural capital on earth. But after decades of deliberation on policy and talk of collaboration, making a […]
Why Business Should Support Global Standard Setting
Two recent legislative developments on mandatory due diligence point to an exciting, yet somewhat troubling trend in the field of corporate social responsibility. The Netherlands Parliament adopted the Child Labour Due Diligence Act, which will make it mandatory for companies in or exporting to the Netherlands to assess whether child labour has contributed to a […]
Inclusive Distribution: The Secret to Securing a Route-to-Market
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are well aware that emerging and developing markets represent their greatest growth opportunity. 90 percent of Unilever’s global growth and Procter & Gamble’s only growth came from emerging markets during 2008-2014. Yet, with the majority of population growth over the next 35 years expected to be in today’s developing countries, […]
Blockchain Will Bring Empowerment And Transparency To Development
The open source, decentralised database blockchain allows donors, aid agencies, NGOs and beneficiaries to operate transparent, agile and open networks. Software is eating the world. And it is also gaining more and more importance and changing processes in development. Access to smartphones is increasing fast. And as we are seeing the first fruitful outcomes stemming […]
Solving Bangladesh’s Skills Shortage Through Apprenticeships
BRAC Case study on Youth Employability Bangladesh has undergone an enormous transformation over the past forty years and has long been seen as an example of how aid can support progressive, pro-poor and country driven development. But a major issue has been holding the country back; young people and businesses in Bangladesh are facing a […]
The World Can't Wait for Sewers
For many people living in low-income urban areas, a flush toilet or sewer connection is little more than a pipe dream. Often the infrastructure doesn’t exist or can’t be constructed in such densely populated or topographically challenging areas, or service fees are simply too high. The world needs a viable, high-quality alternative to piped sanitation […]
The World Can’t Wait for Sewers
For many people living in low-income urban areas, a flush toilet or sewer connection is little more than a pipe dream. Often the infrastructure doesn’t exist or can’t be constructed in such densely populated or topographically challenging areas, or service fees are simply too high. The world needs a viable, high-quality alternative to piped sanitation […]
USAID Partners to Invest in Africa’s Entrepreneurs
This week’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which brings thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymakers to Johannesburg, South Africa, is an opportunity to build on the momentum of the Sankalp Africa Forum and reaffirm the development community’s commitment to invest in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Sustainable entrepreneurship is a critical component of inclusive development. Entrepreneurs create jobs, […]
Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment in DRC
Historically there’s been limited evidence on what works to genuinely economically empower women in DRC’s agricultural sectors. But, thanks to ÉLAN RDC’s WEE Learning Series, that’s now starting to change. Women and working-aged adolescent girls in DRC are some of the most marginalised in the world. Disproportionately high rates of poverty, inadequate access to basic […]
HERproject at 10 – Celebrating HERsuccess, Inspiring HERfuture
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day 2017—a good time to take stock of our collective progress toward gender equality. And such a moment of reflection is particularly relevant for HERproject this year, as we are hitting a big milestone: It’s our 10th birthday! On our anniversary, we’re taking a moment to think about what […]
Girls’ Economic Empowerment – Why Context Matters for Financial Education
Last year I wrote about why it makes sense for corporates to invest in girls’ education and introduced Credit Suisse’s Financial Education for Girls program that aims to improve the financial knowledge and life skills of approximately 100,000 girls. At the time, the program had been implemented for only 18 months. This year we are […]
#BeBoldForChange: To Empower Women, You Need to Work with Men, Too
On International Women’s Day, Alison Ward explains how Cotton Connect’s work with Primark to support women cotton farmers in India is sowing transformative change by engaging both sexes. #BeBoldForChange is the theme for International Women’s Day 2017. While progress has been made around the world, the latest estimates from the World Economic Forum reveal that […]
Co-Creating Partnerships to Achieve the Global Goals
With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) having significantly raised the bar regarding ambition and universality, there is agreement that we have to go well beyond business as usual. Achieving breakthrough progress in these rapidly-changing times requires a new mind-set and different behavior from all of us. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not […]
Mobilizing Private-Sector Investment to Transform Jordan’s Water System
Jordan is one of the driest, most water poor countries in the world, and population growth has put a strain on the country’s already limited water resources and aging infrastructure. The As-Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant is the primary facility for treating wastewater from Jordan’s Amman and Zarqa Governorates, home to about 5 million people, but […]