Moving Beyond Aid to Eradicate Extreme Poverty
With the agreement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world has a unique opportunity to set future development policy for a generation. These goals will stimulate action over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet, and ensure that no one is left behind. This is no longer […]
Business is Ready to Play its Part to Achieve the SDGs
As world leaders come together at the United Nations for the SDG Summit, they will announce their commitment to the new Global Goals for Sustainable Development and set out their ambition for a more peaceful and prosperous world. This is a defining moment for the world community, as we transition from the Millennium Development Goals […]
A Seat at the Table: Pharmaceuticals and the SDGs
By Mario Ottiglio, Director of Public Affairs, Communications & Global Health Policy at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) After more than two years of intense negotiations, the United Nations’ 193 member states have unanimously agreed on a new Sustainable Development Agenda with 17 goals. Together with the UN Post 2020 Climate […]
SDGs Demand Fundamental Shift in Business-NGO Relations
The great and the good of the international development community has descended on New York for the United Nations General Assembly. You might ask, what’s new? It’s an annual pilgrimage after all. Same time. Same place. And mostly the same people. This year is a little different, however. It’s time to say farewell to the […]
Financing to Support New UN Global Development Agenda
As global leaders gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July for the Third Financing for Development Conference (FfD3) to discuss a new financing framework for sustainable development, it was natural for Citi to have a seat at the table. As a leading global financial institution, Citi has provided capital to governments, corporations and development organizations […]
Hidden Hunger is a Global Killer
As we celebrate the achievements under the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals and look to accelerate progress with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, a silent epidemic is afflicting more than a quarter of humanity — 2 billion people — around the world. It accounts for 11 percent of the global burden of disease. This epidemic disproportionately […]
Why the “Blood Diamond” Label Keeps Returning
By the time the movie Blood Diamond appeared in 2006, the diamond wars in Sierra Leone, Congo and Angola were over, and after herculean efforts on the part of governments, industry and civil society, the Kimberley Process was up and running. To dredge up old history and to use that term–“blood”–seemed like an unfair and […]
Education to Children in Crisis and Conflict Zones
When catastrophe strikes, our first response is to send water, shelter, food and health workers. However, most catastrophes — be they conflicts, health crises or natural disasters — have devastating effects that last much longer than the initial onset. According to the UN, it takes an average of 17 years for families to return home […]
Harnessing Domestic Inclusive Business for Social Impact, 24 September, New York
Business Call to Action Annual Forum 2015, 24 September, New York
Business and the Sustainable Development Goals: Building Blocks for Success at Scale, 25 September, New York
Welcome to GoodCo
Author, “Welcome to GoodCo” and Chair of Trustees, Fair For You 60 of the world’s biggest 100 economic entities are companies, only 40 are countries. This and related facts are often cited in order to attack globalisation, tirade against capitalism generally or illustrate just how hopeless everything is. Despite coming from the left of politics […]
A Productivity Target to Reshape the Development Agenda
Of all the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 agenda that will be adopted by United Nations (UN) members later this month, the goals that relate to jobs and productivity are amongst the innovative ones that can change the development agenda. It was surprising that it took so long to get these important issues on […]
Reflections on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
Health Programs at Eli Lilly At the UN General Assembly in New York this month, countries will adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide efforts to end poverty and improve lives over the next 15 years. There’s a lot of excitement and buzz around the proposed SDGs—and not just among those involved with global […]
Africa’s Broader Horizons
Africa’s financial flows come from an increasingly diverse range of sources, as public and private investments from Asia, Europe and the Americas compete for the continent’s opportunities. The Bole Lemi industrial park outside of Addis Ababa is a growing line of huge hangars, surrounded by miles of carparks, access roads and the dust from construction […]
Doing Business: A Slow March to Reform
Some African countries are reforming their regulatory environment, but many remain low on international rankings. The World Bank’s Doing Business report has become a standard shorthand of countries’ willingness to reform their business regulations, and every year sub-Saharan African nations feature strongly in its parallel rankings of top reformers. For the second year in a […]
Impact Investing: Growing Outside the Mainstream
A generational shift in investors’ mindsets could drive wider adoption of impact investment, which looks to marry social or environmental outcomes with financial returns. Tony Elumelu is one of Africa’s most recognisable businesspeople, a regular on the whirlwind circuit of economic conferences that has sprung up as the continent’s growth spurt attracts international investors. Elumelu, […]
Africa: Still Rising?
Just as the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative seemed to be winning out in the international media, the ebola outbreak seems to have reversed a trend towards more positive perceptions of the continent. Carlos Lopes waited for years for Africa’s narrative to change from the poverty-ridden, fly-specked images of the 1980s and 1990s to something that more […]
Improving Market Access for the Poor
What is the development issue? More than 80% of Malawi’s 17 million people live in rural areas, and agricultural labourers make up 90% of the total labour force1. Despite the fact that Malawi’s economy is based on agriculture, the country depends primarily on one major export crop – tobacco – which accounts for more than […]
In a Hungry Africa, We Cannot Wait for Pigs to Fly
Poverty and hunger often go hand-in-hand. But in my country of Uganda, farmers are generating a revolution that is overcoming both, and it is based on pigs. In the past 30 years, the number of pigs raised in Uganda has increased from about 200,000 to 3.2 million pigs. Today, more than one million Ugandan farmers […]