Category: Business

Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs 2012 Impact Report

Today the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs launches our 2012 Impact Report. The annual report highlights new data on the increase in investments in small and growing businesses (SGBs) as well as other trends and challenges that the sector faces. For the first time this year we’re holding launch events not only in the United […]

Launching Branson's B TeamLaunching Branson's B Team

Today sees the launch of the B Team – a collective of some of the world’s leading figures in business, including Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz. The B Team believes that global business is at a crossroads – with the need for a new way of doing business – motivated by people, planet and […]

Launching Branson’s B TeamLaunching Branson’s B Team

Today sees the launch of the B Team – a collective of some of the world’s leading figures in business, including Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz. The B Team believes that global business is at a crossroads – with the need for a new way of doing business – motivated by people, planet and […]

Social Impact Investing And The G8

Adviser, Department for International Development (DFID) Last week the UK Prime Minister hosted a G8 event on social impact investment at the Bloomberg Auditorium in London. Social impact investments are investments that have both a social and a financial return and in the case of international development are targeted at enterprises which benefit the poor […]

Business Solutions for Smallholder Farmers in Africa

At last year’s G8 summit President Obama highlighted the need to invest in African agriculture, announcing a new initiative aimed at driving sustainable agricultural productivity. Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are the key to that initiative’s success. There are around 33 million smallholder farmers in the region, representing 80% of all farms and producing up […]

Rice production in Cambodia: the poor farmer’s perspective

Rice farming in Cambodia can be a tough and uncertain business. Rainfall is highly erratic, both drought and floods being regular occurrences, land is often infertile or under-nourished and investment in new farming systems and technology is minimal. Yet approximately 60% of the Cambodian population rely on agriculture (mainly rice production) for their livelihoods and […]

The Tipping Point: How Japanese Firms Can Shape the Inclusive Business Landscape

It was an honor to represent the Business Call to Action (BCtA) at a high-level side event last week in Japan—at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V). The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) hosted the event and supported Japan’s commitment and preparation for last week’s conference. JICA organized seminars on inclusive […]

SMEs: The Next Frontier in Financial Inclusion

How can we contribute to meaningful increases in emerging market GDP and jobs without getting in the way? By investing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Microfinance Information Exchange reports that SMEs make up over 60% of national GDP and account for over 70% of total employment in emerging market nations. SMEs are major […]

The Hunger Alliance: Investing in Small-Scale Women Farmers

There’s already enough food in the world for everyone, but one person in eight goes hungry every night, and 2.3 million children die needlessly each year from malnutrition. What can be done about it? A report published by the Hunger Alliance suggests investing more in small-scale women farmers would be a good start. Three quarters […]

Empowering Women through Business

How does any institution, private or public, achieve scale when targeting an emerging area of business interest such as supporting women entrepreneurs? This was the key question during the conversation I participated in, hosted by Coca-Cola and Business Fights Poverty, on the margins of the Africa World Economic Forum in Cape Town last month. The […]

Developing BoP Partnerships

At the BoP Innovation Center (BoPInc), we just finished a new publication on BoP partnerships. It is the third publication of a series of five. The series is based on experiences and insights from the implementation of three seperate innovation pilots. These pilots form the Three Pilots for Pro-Poor Innovation (3P4PPI) program. Together with our […]

Business Incubation in Ghana

Mabel Simpson is the creative director of her own design house, mSimps. It’s a prestigious job for a young woman in Ghana. “At mSimps we make hand-made hand bags, clutch purses, men’s slippers, laptop sleeves,” she says proudly. “All mSimps bags are one-offs. Two people do not own the same bag. Our designs are inspired […]

Beyond income: Understanding the BoP from an access to development perspective

No matter how much practitioners agree on quantifying the Base Of the Pyramid (BOP) based on their access to development and basic needs, we still seem to be loosing the battle against income threshold fundamentalists. Beyond the traditional controversies calculating purchasing power parity (PPP) income measurements, due in part to the lack of comparable basket […]

Supporting Small Shopkeepers in El Salvador

One way in which economic and social progress can be advanced in Latin America is through modernising and strengthening small and micro enterprises across the region. Small and micro businesses are critical to economic growth; they play an entrepreneurial role in meeting the needs of local consumers and larger businesses, drive improvements in innovation and […]

Businesses invest in projects that improve lives and protect the environment

An annual state of the market report launched today, shows that businesses across the world continue to see the value of investing in projects that reduce carbon emissions, protect the environment and improve people’s lives, as a way to demonstrate industry leadership and take responsibility for their impacts. Over the last year alone, the private […]

Sustainable Food Production – A 21st Century Revolution

I grew up on a small farm, living on less than a dollar a day per person. I was lucky—we had a big garden, an orchard, raised some of our own meat, and hunted and fished for most of the rest. Years later, I worked with refugees and famine victims, seeing firsthand the impacts of […]

An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Food Production

TechnoServe As Eshetu Abote, a member of the Shegole coffee farming cooperative in western Ethiopia, crouches near his maize (corn) crop, the difference is apparent. The shorter plants – cultivated using traditional methods – barely reach his shoulder. The taller plants have benefited from training given during monthly sessions supported by TechnoServe’s team, which is […]