Category: Business

A New Way of Working with SMEs to Tackle the Refugee Crisis

By Kathryn Taetzsch, Senior Relief Coordinator & Private Sector Engagement Lead, Global Humanitarian Operations, World Vision International The scope of the challenge… a people-centered approach with “new actors” Out of about 65.3 Mio people who have been forcibly displaced, 21.3 Mio refugees worldwide require humanitarian assistance in recurrent or protracted crises. The international community is […]

Enabling Youth Entrepreneurship in West Africa

An Interview with Isaac Aggrey, CEO, African Social Entrepreneurs Network BFP: First of all, please introduce yourself to the Business Fights Poverty community. I am passionate about providing effective financial solutions to benefit local entrepreneurs, social impact investors, and most importantly, people at all levels of society, especially women entrepreneurs. I am the CEO of […]

Making ‘People Are Our Greatest Asset’ Ring True in Company Workforces

Young women working in Myanmar’s garment sector feel very far from being their employer’s ‘greatest asset’. ‘Disclosure’ is a hot topic at present, with the BBC dealing with the fall-out from disclosing the gender pay-gap amongst top presenters, the prime minister of Pakistan resigning following disclosure about his family wealth via the Panama Papers, and […]

Scaling Inclusive Business Models at the Nexus of Poverty and Environment

Scaling Inclusive Business Models at the Nexus of Poverty And Environment: Case Studies from the Philippines To date, many actors involved in poverty alleviation and environmental protection have operated in silos. Although both sectors follow ecosystem approaches, in the first, impact is seen as positive and desirable, and in the latter, impact is seen as […]

Family Planning – It’s Everyone’s Business

To achieve the ambitious and urgent goal of reaching 120 million women with family planning will take significant political and financial will by governments – which is why the forthcoming Family Planning Summit is so welcome. But what about the role of business? How do we convince them that family planning is something that directly […]

Empowering Smallholder Farmers to Improve their Incomes

By David Norman, Challenge Director, Business Fights Poverty Millions of smallholders live in poverty, unable to meet basic needs. Smallholder farmers need to improve their incomes and competitiveness if they are to achieve and sustain a decent standard of living, reinvest in their farms, and continue to supply a sustainable crop to multinational companies. The […]

Impact Sourcing and Inclusive Supply Chains

An Interview with Tim Hopper, Manager of Responsible Sourcing Initiatives, Microsoft Recently, BSR’s Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC)—which seeks to create more inclusive supply chains through procurement—published “The Autism Empowerment Kit,” which offers recommendations and resources for employers to provide workplace accommodations that empower employees with autism. Microsoft, one of the sponsors of this kit, […]

For Sustainable Solutions to the Refugee Crisis, Business will be Key

Anyone who follows the news is well aware that we are in the midst of a global refugee crisis of massive proportions. What may be less apparent from the coverage is that this crisis is long-term in nature. According to the UN Refugee Agency, by the end of 2015, there were 21.3 million refugees around […]

Skills and Prosperity in the Bangladesh Garment Industry

Garment factories in Bangladesh are now seeing positive returns from investing in in-house skills training. A new training approach has to date supported 4,000 people into sewing machine operator positions through a unique partnership between major British retailers, garment factories and the market development programme, Sudokkho. This is a win-win situation. In a sector operating […]

Emerging Trends in Digital Delivery of Agri-finance

This is the first in a series of three blogs on the role of technology in the rural finance projects supported by The MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity (FRP). In this first blog, we explore the major trends in digital delivery that the Fund is seeing in its portfolio. In the second blog, we […]

Building Efficiency for Farmers in Kenya – Replacing Cash with Digital Repayments

The shift to digital payments has enormous potential for eliminating rural poverty. Success stories from places like Kenya show that potential can turn into real-life impact, as mobile payments help to boost productivity for smallholder farmers. Just this week, a new case study by the United Nations-based Better Than Cash Alliance presents how the agriculture […]

Building Know-How for Corporate Social Innovation

There are growth opportunities outside its traditional markets. It needs to stay ahead of potentially disruptive technological changes. It has made high-profile commitments on complex sustainability issues. It wants to engage, retain, and develop future leaders by tapping into the power of purpose at work. For reasons like these, a growing number of companies are […]

The Power of Using Talent for Good

When considering the ways in which the private sector can advance global health and development and improve our world, a few obvious options come to mind. Funding is usually high on the list, as is research and development, but other interventions are in demand. Business acumen, supply chain knowledge and monitoring and evaluation expertise are […]

Empowering Women through Corporate Value Chains: Getting the Data to Drive Scale

In certain circles, it is taken virtually as given these days that business culture and practices will need to change to achieve gender equality and empower women. Companies have become more open in acknowledging that unconscious bias and other, structural factors make it harder for women to succeed, and at the same time, they are […]

How Ethiopia’s Nascent Apparel Industry Can Build a Strong, Empowered Workforce

“In today’s global economy, brands must understand the industry needs in the new countries they source from. At The Children’s Place, our aim is to support the development of the new garment workforce in Ethiopia and do our part to bring sustainable business practices to the region.” —The Children’s Place Today, Ethiopia is a small […]

New BSR Guidance Integrates Gender Equality into Supply Chain Codes of Conduct

With women holding 60 to 90 percent of jobs in the labor-intensive stages of the apparel and fresh produce global supply chains, it would make sense for companies in those industries to consider women’s specific challenges when focusing on ethical supply chain management. However, until now, women have rarely been a focus of such strategies, […]

Growing SMEs and Young People, Together

We know the statistics – worldwide more than 1 billion young people will enter the job market between now and 2030, 600 million jobs are needed globally over 15 years to keep current employment rate, 71 million young people are unemployed globally, the youth population in Africa will double to over 830 million by 2050, […]