In Memoriam: Tribute to Paul Polak – Market-Based Development Pioneer 1933 – 2019
We were greatly saddened to hear the news of the death of Paul Polak, a pioneer of market-based development, on 10 October 2019. Paul’s mission was to inspire a revolution in how we tackle poverty – showing how market-based approaches to development can benefit the 2.7 billion customers who live on less than $2 a […]
How Can We Better Support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in Large Company Value Chains Through an Ecosystems Approach?
Business Fights Poverty has been running a Challenge to find out how business can take an ecosystems approach to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in their extended value chains. To ensure MSMEs thrive, large companies, governments, donors and funders and NGOs need to move towards a holistic and joined-up approach to enterprise support. […]
There is No ‘I’ in team: How Collaboration and Innovation are Enabling Inclusive Businesses to Achieve Greater Social Impact
The world of inclusive business isn’t any different. We’re seeing more and more inspiring collaborations that are achieving exponential results, demonstrating the value of partnerships, and the opportunities for innovation that these alliances allow. Take a look at the recent partnership between BCtA member Essilor and Chinese commerce giant AliBaba – together they’re providing access […]
Strengthening the MSME Ecosystem to Enable Business Growth and Social impact in Frontier Markets
For large companies operating in emerging and developing countries, Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) are key business partners along the value chain – as suppliers, distributors, retailers and customers. MSMEs can create access to untapped low-income markets. As retailers, clinics, pharmacies or service providers, they reach both rural and urban households with goods and […]
The Role Banks Can Play in Advancing Gender Equality
BFP: Credit Suisse is this year’s host of Business Fights Poverty’s flagship event at UNGA in New York – could you tell us a little more about why a bank like Credit Suisse supports these kinds of initiatives? PD: At Credit Suisse, we believe that it is in the interest of both our organization and […]
Future-Gazing Business Models: How One Company Uses Impact Measurement to Tackle Youth Unemployment
Impact champions such as India’s Empower Pragati are turning the impact measurement field around. Rather than defining impact based on past activities, they are using ongoing business activities to guide how they chart the course for the future Unemployment is a country-wide issue in India, and the nation’s youth are hardest hit. A staggering one […]
Bringing the Lessons of Clean Sanitation Home
Banka BioLoo, which produces environmentally-friendly bio-toilets, looks to the communities where its products are present to measure how they’re improving lives by raising hygiene and sanitation standards in children’s schools Having access to clean toilets is not just a basic human right – it’s also a health necessity. But in India, nearly 50 million people[1] […]
Inclusive Business – Make or Buy?
Investing externally has become a real opportunity for Corporates now. More than a decade of innovation has brought forth hundreds of commercially viable companies that reach low-income communities as consumers, producers, employees or entrepreneurs. Many of them are ready for growth. Pairing up with a large company can marry the best of both worlds: agility […]
The Fix Up: Campaigning for the Right Reasons – Marketing Campaigns vs “Advocacy” Campaigns
I’m on a mission to harness the power of brands to add genuine value to societal progress, whether that be social or environmental. Why? We’re facing unprecedented times – a climate and environment emergency has been declared, displacement is a threat for more and more communities, civil space is increasingly restrictive, regressive girls’ and women’s […]
How Can Businesses Unlock the Potential of Social Intrapreneurs?
Building on the “The Intrapreneurship Ecosystem: Creating the conditions for social innovation to flourish in your company,” a business guide produced by Business Fights Poverty and The League of Intrapreneurs (LOI) with support from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), CEMEX, and the BMW Foundation, we recently held two online discussions. A panel of […]
How Businesses Can Help Achieve the SDGs for Refugees
The SDGs were launched, to great fanfare, as a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for everyone. As states signed up to the Global Goals in 2015 they pledged to leave no-one behind and prioritise the fast-tracking of action for those with furthest to go. Yet four years on, research shows that […]
How Can Business Advance Gender Equality Across the Value Chain by Engaging Men as Allies?
Men have a critical role to play in achieving gender equality. What is less clear is what this might mean in practice for organisations in their approach to advance gender equality. A new Business Fights Poverty Challenge will explore how businesses and organisations are advancing gender equality within their organizations and across the value chain […]
Not Just a Women’s Issue
What are some of the causes and consequences of violence against women? What role do men play? How can men unite to ensure the world is safer for everyone: women and girls, men and boys? In the inaugural presentation of the Clayman Institute’s 18-month symposium on breaking the culture of sexual assault, noted educator, author […]
Managing Human Rights Risks: Embracing a More Robust Approach to Human Rights Risks in Supply Chains
Oxfam will lead a panel at Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 on its supermarket campaign, Behind the Barcodes, giving a platform to two influential supermarkets as well as perspectives from consumers, investors and a multi-stakeholder initiative on ethical trade. The top six UK supermarkets have already responded to the campaign. As more consumers and investors […]
Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 Connection Zone Lunch: Transcending Conflict to Fight Poverty
“Seventy-three percent of people in the societies of the bottom billion have recently been through a civil war or are still in one,” said Professor Collier in The Bottom Billion. Conflict is “pretty distinctive,” he says, to the poorest countries on the planet. In these countries conflict tends to be a pattern, often prolonged. In […]
Purpose Goes Hungry Without Culture
Business Fights Poverty is currently asking: “How can we embed Purpose authentically into business.” But what can this look like in practice, and where do we go from here? First, the Purpose has to be worth embedding! In other words, it has to be inspiring and convincingly explain how the business creates value for itself […]
The Journey of Total to Inclusive Energy Solutions
Over the last decade, many multinational corporations (MNCs) have attempted to set up inclusive businesses of one kind or another, with varying success. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, few of these pilots have been successful and an even smaller proportion has reached significant scale. Conversations with the intrapreneurs who have been […]
Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 Women’s Equality Zone Workshop: Preparing for possible new ILO regulation
CARE International UK are delighted to support the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on business and GBV and to host the Women’s Equality zone at the Business Fights Poverty Oxford conference on 11 July 2019. By the time this event takes place, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are likely to have adopted a new international labour […]
Time For A Fresh Look At Inclusive Business
I remember the excitement in the early noughties when I first started hearing about big businesses such as Unilever, SAB Miller and Vodafone grasping the opportunity to reach huge numbers of people previously excluded from their supply chains. It seemed to be such a great win-win. Large companies – and multinationals (MNCs) in particular – […]
Supporting Business Solutions To Poverty
Over the past few decades, much progress has been made on a range of development challenges – including poverty reduction, preventable disease and access to education. Yet much remains to be done and the urgency of dealing with intractable, global problems that put these gains at risk has increased. With so much at stake, the […]