Network of Small-Scale farmers in India Tackle Climate Change
“It was a turning point for me,” said Ruchi Jain, Founder and CEO of Taru Naturals, about her trip to the villages of small-scale farmers in India struggling with the effects of climate change. “I realized that if you want to make a big impact on the world, you have to be grassroots-based—it has to be […]
Effective Support for Women Entrepreneurs Goes Beyond Skills Training
Effective Support for Women Entrepreneurs Goes Beyond Skills Training Bernadette Sambo is an entrepreneur, wife, and mother of three in Maputo province, Mozambique. The challenge of balancing these roles is only made more difficult by restrictive gender-based social and familial expectations. “It had been very difficult to work and negotiate with my husband,” she recalls. […]
New Report: Women Champion Forest Conservation in Bale, Ethiopia
A new report outlines how Farm Africa and SOS Sahel Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains Eco-region REDD+ forest conservation programme in Oromia, Ethiopia has achieved impressive results in reducing deforestation, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing household incomes and gender equality. Since 2012, Farm Africa has been working in partnership with the NGO SOS Sahel Ethiopia, with […]
Real-time information for famers enables climate change adaption
How does Lentera use data to enable farmers to adapt to climate change? We use satellite and weather data to provide farmers with crop specific advice with regards to fertilizers, pests and diseases, and water management of their farms. This helps farmers adapt their agronomy practices in line with changing climate patterns. We also use […]
Steps for improving incomes in banana supply chains
Banana producers face an ever-tightening financial squeeze, caused by soaring export costs, plummeting import prices, climate change, Covid-19, supermarket price wars and the fusarium TR4 fungus. Add to this rising food prices and shortages of farming inputs like fertiliser, and you have a perfect storm. These challenges threaten the prospects of smallholder banana farmers and […]
Advancing Gender Equality through Inclusive Distribution Networks
Advancing Gender Equality through Inclusive Distribution Networks Women play a vital role in fast-moving consumer goods, or FMCG, value chains. Much of the focus on accelerating gender equality in this space, however, has been limited to supporting women suppliers. Women can also play key roles in FMCG value chains, both as distributors and as retailers. […]
The sobering reality of the UN’s Global Goals
The sobering reality of the UN’s Global Goals Remember the Sustainable Development Goals? It’s not a facetious question. Amid all the other corporate sustainability priorities of the past few years — net zero, ESG, the circular economy, social justice, resource constraints and all the rest — not to mention a seemingly never-ending drumbeat of political upheaval, […]
Turbo-charging D2C sales for an impact sanitation product
Our client: SATO by LIXIL, creating sustainable, affordable hygiene solutions LIXIL designed its SATO product range to improve sanitation and hygiene access for communities without access to sewer systems, via affordable and easy-to-install systems. SATO has impacted over 25 million lives to date, shipping over 5.1 million units across 38 countries. The blue SATO pan, […]
Six ways social entrepreneurs can step up to help refugees
Half of refugees in the UK struggle to get employed. What can those of us working in the social impact space do to help them find meaningful work? In the recent WISE Ways to Lead webinar, hosted in partnership with NatWest, we heard from social enterprises working with refugees to answer just that. Read on […]
Supporting refugees through financial inclusion
On Monday, World Refugee Day marked the start of Refugee Week (20-26th June) – a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. That sense of creativity and resilience has been embodied by thousands of people living in Zambia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, who have benefitted from a joint […]
NaTakallam – where language learning meets social impact for refugees
Today, there are over 100 million forcibly displaced people in the world. They face not only the loss of assets and livelihood but also of their agency. Mobilizing displaced individuals to regain their agency and earn an income is at the heart of NaTakallam’s mission. However, xenophobia is becoming more widespread – given a microphone […]
Combating rural poverty through Inclusive Business
Maize is the staple crop for 1.6 million smallholder farmers in Zambia. It is their main food, their source of cash – and their nemesis. Growing maize in monoculture, lacking access to inputs, and relying on traders to reach markets, most smallholder farmers stay desperately poor. According to the World Bank, more than three out […]
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, […]
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, […]
Women at the Center of Africa’s Post-Pandemic Recovery
Every year, Women’s History Month is a chance to celebrate women of the past who have shaped the Africa we have become – and to highlight African women who are making history today. History will look kindly on the women whose pioneering responses to the pandemic saved many lives. Women like Dr Tlamelo Setshwaelo, who […]