Eco-Entrepreneurship and the Post-2015 Agenda
The Millennium Development Goals have shaped development cooperation in the last 15 years, and there has been progress towards eliminating poverty worldwide. Nevertheless, much remains to be done. The post-2015 agenda and Sustainable Development Goals will set ambitious targets not only to end poverty, but also to promote growth and well-being for all, protect the […]
Climate Resilience in Action in Nepal
“I remember when I was younger the water in fish pond outside my house came up to my waist – now it is dried up” – Manbir Khadka Manbir is a smallholder farmer from Kwanga village in the Rolpa District of Nepal. He says that increasing community income is critical to combat climate change. Without […]
Designing Programs that Work in Diverse Settings
Rice farmers on the hot, dry plains of northern Ghana would seem to have little in common with dairy and maize farmers in Kenya’s verdant Rift Valley: they live in different environments, sell different crops, and draw on different resources. Is it possible to design a program that has a positive impact on both groups? […]
Could You Be A Business Mentor to a Ghanaian SME?
Finding credible local suppliers that can deliver goods and services to time, quality and scale is a challenge that businesses experience everyday in Africa. Yet on the other hand, sourcing locally remains critical to the long-term success of any business on the continent. As a result of this gap, significant investment and job creating opportunities […]
The Inspiring Possibility of Baobab
Twelve years ago I was working in the advertising industry, creating and launching brands for big multinational companies; investing all my energy promoting products l didn’t particularly believe in (like nasal decongestants and frozen ready meals) for people who were largely unappreciative. And I was thinking – what am I doing with my life? At […]
Engaging Employees to Deliver on WASH Goals
This leadership perspective is part of a series on the theme of creating business value and development impact in the WASH sector. The series and accompanying discussion paper are co-produced by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor and Business Fights Poverty. In 2008, Diageo announced a slate of sustainability targets that cut across carbon […]
Attracting African Capital to Invest in African SMEs
Cameroun Breuvages, Cameroon, Photo Credit: © Bechir Malum What does it take to finance early-stage Small and Growing Businesses in Africa? A new handbook shares the experience of African investors, and shows how building local ecosystems and attracting African capital will enable the growth of the sector. Investing in Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) in […]
Agribusiness and Climate Change: The Smart Way Forward
The world’s smallholder farmers – and therefore much of the planet’s food supply – are under severe threat from climate change. While many businesses are stepping up their response to these complex challenges, and increasingly advocating for pragmatic and science-based solutions, many are frequently met with mistrust and opposition. I have often heard businesses offer […]
Corporations Supporting Women’s Economic Progress
The past month has seen multiple global events commemorating International Women’s Day, including CCC’s stellar collaboration with the UN Office of Partnerships and UN Women, The Empowerment Bridge: Building a Lifetime of Opportunity for Wome… These events have emphasized some common points: though the world has seen much progress for women and girls in the […]
The Power of the Mobile Phone to Change Lives
Celeste Boca holding the airtime (phone credit) that she sells. She enrolled in AMIMO’s (Association of Migrant Miners Mozambique) income generating activities workshop, supported by VSO through the Phoning Out Poverty and AIDS (POPA) project. The training is also supported by Mcel, a Mozambican phone company, who provide subsidized airtime that the women can sell […]
Transforming Markets in Latin America
From 2000 to 2010, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) enjoyed a remarkable wave of sustained economic growth which helped improve the incomes and welfare of millions of people living at the base of the pyramid (BoP). According to the World Bank, nearly 70 million people increased their purchasing power significantly and 50 million Latin […]
The Evolution of the BoP Market in Latin America
By Lina Salazar O, Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) at the Inter-American Development Bank. It has been more than ten years since we first read about the base of the pyramid (BOP) and the large and virtually untapped market represented by this socio-economic segment. People at the BOP in Latin America and the Caribbean live […]
Intel's Global Women and Girls Initiative
Suzanne Fallender, Director, Global Women and Girls Initiative, Intel speaking at this year’s International Women’s Day Forum In mid-April, CCC and the Harvard Kennedy School Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative released A Path to Empowerment: The role of corporations in supporting women…. The report, based on a series of invitation-only, high level roundtables, offers a three-pronged […]
Intel’s Global Women and Girls Initiative
Suzanne Fallender, Director, Global Women and Girls Initiative, Intel speaking at this year’s International Women’s Day Forum In mid-April, CCC and the Harvard Kennedy School Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative released A Path to Empowerment: The role of corporations in supporting women…. The report, based on a series of invitation-only, high level roundtables, offers a three-pronged […]
Government and Policy in Inclusive Business
I am returning to this topic because I think that any discussion of the role of government and policy in inclusive business will benefit from understanding better how IB contributes to a transformation in a specific market system, and indeed vice versa. While all market systems programmes do not involve innovation by an individual company […]
Changing Gender Roles and Nutrition in Bangladesh
Every morning, Lipi cycles down the dusty roads of Mitapukur, a small village in northern Bangladesh, balancing a bag filled with products on her shoulder. Lipi is one of the 160 Nutritional Sales Agents that was trained by the PROOFS (Profitable Opportunities for Food Security) project, an initiative of the three NGOs ICCO, iDE, BoP […]
Promoting Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development
Marquard, SEED On 20 April, ten years ago, five start-up entrepreneurs from Bolivia, Cambodia, Madagascar, Nepal and Nigeria travelled to New York to attend the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). They were to receive the first SEED Awards for their innovative approaches to advance sustainable development at the grassroots. Little did they – […]
Investment in Mining, Opportunities for Farmers?
One sunny morning I’m talking to Mr Kimono Wendo, a Congolese refugee and farmer living in Meheba Refugee Settlement in the North-Western Province of Zambia. Mr Kimono tells me of his 17 year struggle to provide food for his family by growing maize in the rainy season and small patches of vegetables in the dry […]
Act Local, Think Global: The Food Revolution in Zambia
International conversation around food in Africa has traditionally been one of doom and decline. In 2012 the By Meera Patel, Operations Associate at Ashoka UK. You can follow Meera on Twitter. One third of all children suffering from acute malnutrition are located in Sub-saharan Africa. One in four people in the region are under-nourished, and […]
Corporate-NGO Inclusive Business Partnerships
At our Inclusion Inc. conference at The Fletcher School, there was a fascinating conversation between Tim Cross, President of YouthBuild International, and two of YouthBuild’s corporate partners, Lata Reddy, President of The Prudential Foundation and Dina Silver Pokedoff, Senior Manager of Branding for the Saint-Gobain Corporation. What I particularly enjoyed about the discussion was that […]