Going beyond the poverty line
Ensuring resilient livelihoods and sustained employment for vulnerable communities was already a stretch pre-Covid-19. For those communities lacking a stable income, the impact has been inconceivable. With border closures and travel restrictions, the downturn in trade has massively affected the income and employment of these vulnerable communities, especially the self-employed. Currently, more than 475 million […]
Digital innovation to support African SMEs
COVID-19 may significantly hinder economic and social development across Africa. If the continent is to recover, then micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs will be the engine of growth. Local businesses will provide livelihoods for millions of people and goods and services to a growing consumer base. At the heart of this business-led recovery will be digital technology; […]
5 lessons from the pandemic: Agility, clarity, and sincerity define game play today
The most successful businesses continuously evolved to stay relevant and remain competitive. Yet sometimes it takes a crisis to jolt our best intentions into action. Whether that crisis affects a business, an industry or, in the case of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the systemic problems it has exposed, the world, it’s essential to reflect […]
Integrated Corporate Governance: Six Leadership Priorities For Boards Beyond The Crisis
The Covid-19 crisis is accelerating a shift toward a more integrated approach to corporate governance that has been gathering force for some time. The pandemic has put people’s lives, livelihoods and learning at the center of the public policy and business response in almost every country and industry sector. It has dramatically underscored the need […]
Scalability, Sustainability and Participation in Value Chain
This is the second in a three part series, published in the lead up to Standard Chartered’s Futuremakers Forum online events 2020. Join the conversation exploring innovative ideas and tangible solutions for financing young entrepreneurs. Supporting youth-led enterprises is good for business and vital for inclusive economic growth. According to the World Bank, SMEs represent […]
The post-Covid-19 world presents an opportunity for better business, but will it happen?
The global outbreak has not only exposed the frailty and complexity of human needs, but also how quickly they can evolve – and thus how quickly organisations must adapt to keep up. Without diminishing its devastating impact, if this crisis has a silver lining, it is the opportunity it provides businesses to prepare for a post-pandemic world: […]
Finding Innovative Ideas and Tangible Solutions for Financing Young Entrepreneurs
This is the first in a three part series, published in the lead up to Standard Chartered’s Futuremakers Forum online events 2020. To join the conversation exploring innovative ideas and tangible solutions for financing young entrepreneurs – the live event will take place on 30 July 2020. Please click here to register. Globally, more than […]
The post-COVID-19 world presents an opportunity for better business, but will it happen?
As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on lives and livelihoods around the world, fulfilling a social purpose has never been so important to businesses or their customers. The global outbreak has not only exposed the frailty and complexity of human needs, but also how quickly they can evolve – and thus how quickly organisations must adapt to […]
Early Insights From Four Practitioners in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis
This article is a follow-up to the webinar “Resilience for Inclusive Businesses – Early Insights from Practitioners” that took place on April 9, 2020. For the video recording, please click here. To be updated on future webinar installments, please check out the Hystra website or the Global Distributors Collective’s dedicated COVID resources page. As the […]
Inclusive Business Solutions to Poverty, Post COVID-19
While corporate philanthropy and development aid will be necessary for the short to medium term, the economic recovery agenda demands collective and coherent action from businesses, including corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). If ever evidence was needed that inclusive business should be higher up the agenda, this is it. Inclusive business and COVID-19 […]
TWO WEEKS IN ONE!
For me, this coming week is two weeks in one! Let me explain. One of my volunteering roles is as chair of the charity Carers UK. We are the co-ordinators of, and a partner in, Carers Week in the UK. This is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges unpaid carers […]
Put Collaboration at the Heart of Global Efforts to Re-build MSMEs Post COVID-19
The global pandemic has triggered an unprecedented surge of support for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), both in recognition of the critical role they play in national economies and global value chains, and because of their vulnerability as global economic activity grinds to a halt. COVID-19 is making an already challenging environment for MSMEs […]
In Emerging Markets, Entrepreneurial Support Organizations are Key to the COVID-19 Economic Response
In these nations, governments are also implementing stay-at-home orders and enforcing quarantines. Businesses, here and abroad, are shuttered. In response to the pandemic, the U.S. Congress has now approved $660 billion in support to American small businesses, an amount greater than the annual gross domestic product of all but a few large developing countries. In […]
Rapid Innovation Through Partnerships
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread rapidly around the world, creating the worst humanitarian and economic crisis in a generation. The response to this pandemic has needed to be equally rapid and innovation has been required at many levels. Private sector partnerships have been playing an important role in generating creative solutions. Quick examples […]
The Informal Economy is Complicating Government Responses to COVID-19: Will the Crisis Push Millions Toward Formality?
As COVID-19 spreads in countries around the world, governments have already started to address the economic and livelihood challenges posed by the constraints the pandemic has put on behavior and employment. Wealthier OECD countries are designing economic support measures to target the backbone of most economies – the tens of thousands to millions of small businesses. […]
Saving Main Street in the Wake of COVID-19
Why saving small businesses matters Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. Under the most expansive definition, small businesses account for nearly half of the nation’s employees and almost 65 percent of new jobs created. Owning a small business is also associated with faster wealth-building. Since 1990, families in which the head of the household was […]
Three Promises Lidl Has Made to Protect its Food Workers
But there is another group of frontline food workers doing the same, hidden from view, those who produce the products we are all trying to buy, such as tea, coffee, prawns, fruit and vegetables. Even before Coronavirus, Oxfam research highlighted workers’ vulnerability, earning low wages on insecure contracts, often with poor sick pay and hygiene arrangements. In 2018, we launched the Behind the […]
UNIDO Helps Tajik Textile Enterprises Diversify into PPE Production
To further help avoid a health crisis, some national textile enterprises are diversifying production to include medical masks and gowns. The move will provide much-needed supplies of protective equipment to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Tajikistan. Two enterprises making this move, Guldaston and Suman, have received assistance from the United Nations Industrial Development […]
Vulnerable Workers in Global Value Chains – Ambitious Collaboration Needed
Global brands and large companies acted swiftly to stabilise cash flow and protect their staff in developed countries. Attention in the next part of the ‘respond and stabilise’ phase needs to shift rapidly and ambitiously to workers throughout the value chain. Damage has already been done, but much can still be done to mitigate the […]
How Start-Ups are Helping to Fight COVID-19? An Emerging Market View: Kerala
Social distancing has been the buzz-word of COVID-19 response globally. But how do you #BreakTheChain of contact in public spaces like airports or bus stations? Kerala start-up, Asimov Robotics has deployed robots at entrances of office buildings and other public places to dispense hand sanitizers and for delivering public awareness messages on precautionary measures to […]