How Banks Can Grow Profitably By Being Inclusive
Within Reach, a new report launched by CARE and Accenture, the global consulting firm, sets out how banks in emerging economies can grow profitably by being inclusive. At CARE we know that providing access to basic formal bank accounts has a transformative effect for those living in poverty, especially women. Decades of working in this […]
In Praise of Low Bono
I work for EY, running Enterprise Growth Services (EGS) – a programme which sends our consultants, both local and international, to help promising social impact enterprises grow. We help solar companies understand their customers better, WASH businesses build scalable franchises, and ag enterprises improve their cashflow. Our projects are full time, hands-on, mostly in sub-Saharan […]
Creating Businesses from Nothing
“Entrepreneurship is key to tackling youth unemployment”, said H.E. Joyce Kikafuna, Ugandan High Commissioner to the UK, at an event held by Grow Movement on Tuesday 17 November. The event was held to mark Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of entrepreneurs which takes place in 160 countries around the world. From networking events […]
Celebrating the Power of Mentoring
Onty Mogofu says she was “born with an entrepreneurial spirit.” As a young girl in Botswana, she started plaiting the hair of the women in her village for a small fee, taking her profits home to supplement the family income. Onty now runs a thriving events management company called 360 Events Affair, which provides training, […]
Increasing Financial Inclusion in the Garment Industry
Today, BSR and theBill & Melinda Gates Foundationare announcing a new strategic partnership to increase financial inclusion for low-income women and men working in the garment industry in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Through this partnership, BSR will help garment factories in these countries transition from cash-based payroll or traditional direct deposit to mobile wallet accounts, […]
Making Solar Power Affordable
Author: John Converse Townsend, Ashoka Mexico’s solar energy market is booming. And that means more and more people, even those living on less than $7 per day, can afford clean electricity. The second-most populated country in the Americas is home to the fastest-growing regional solar market in the world. About 97 percent of Mexico’s population […]
Setting the Stage for Green & Inclusive Growth
Where many conventional start-up enterprises fail after only two years, more than three out of four SEED Winners have not, that is the major outcome of this flagship report“, states the foreword by Ibrahim Thiaw, UNEP Deputy Executive Director and UN Assistant-Secretary-General. This success is even more astounding when one considers that these are not […]
Setting the Stage for Green & Inclusive Growth
Where many conventional start-up enterprises fail after only two years, more than three out of four SEED Winners have not, that is the major outcome of this flagship report“, states the foreword by Ibrahim Thiaw, UNEP Deputy Executive Director and UN Assistant-Secretary-General. This success is even more astounding when one considers that these are not […]
The New Era of Inclusive Business to Achieve the SDGs
The Business Call to Action (BCtA) held this year’s Sixth Annual Forum on September 24th in New York City in conjunction with the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and the Sustainable Development Summit 2015. With community support from Business Fights Poverty, the event convened over 150 people from BCtA member companies, development […]
How Successful Partnerships Will Fuel Agenda 2030
(SHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images) By Fiona Koch, Communications Manager, Ashoka Ireland All eyes were on New York last week as the UN launched its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); a new package of economic, social and environmental objectives designed to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With 17 overarching aims broken down into 169 targets, the […]
Lifting Farmers Out of Poverty in Honduras
My family has been farming in Honduras for generations. In fact, at one time, my father was the largest cotton producer in the country, and all of my siblings and I studied agriculture while at university. So we know the important role that agriculture plays in lifting communities out of poverty, solving hunger issues and […]
Collaborating on the SDGs: Start Here
With the jetlag from New York just starting to subside, I’d love to share my thoughts on some of the exciting things to emerge from the recent UN General Assembly at which the world’s leaders signed up to a new global development agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals. Getting to this stage has been a long […]
Turbo Charging Development: Making the SDGs a Reality
By Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever and Mark Gunton, CEO, Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership In New York last week global leaders adopted a set of ambitious goals and targets to set the world on a new course. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have committed us to eradicating extreme poverty, fighting injustice and inequality, and taking urgent […]
Collaborative Action to Accelerate Growth with Impact
Yasmina Zaidman, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Acumen On a cold January afternoon in 2012, at Dow’s headquarters in Midland, Michigan, I sat at a large conference table with representatives from across Dow’s venture fund, foundation, sustainability team, and human resources department. This was the first meeting of its kind that I had attended with one of […]
B2B Collaboration that Drives Growth and Impact
A significant shift is happening in the way global corporations and mission-driven organizations see poverty, food security, water scarcity, climate change, and other sustainable development challenges—a convergence around the view, expressed so well by management guru Peter Drucker, that “every single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise.” At […]
The Most Valuable Organization: A Changemaker Company
In 2014, I argued that the social intrapreneur was a company’s most valuable employee. Social intrapreneurs embodied the spirit of “doing good, doing well” and demonstrated a unique ability to serve corporate bottom lines in a way that simultaneously produced positive impact for society. So how has the “most valuable employee” fared in 2015? It […]
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 […]
Rise of the B Corps, and the Revolution they Represent
There is a tangible excitement in the air this week as the international community gathers in New York to usher in the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the ambitious new vision for ending poverty and protecting our planet. Beyond the audacious scope of the Goals, something else is happening that is perhaps even more […]
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 […]
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 […]