Category: Business

Priceless: Volunteers Bring Financial Literacy to the Masses

To help combat this critical social gap, corporate philanthropy initiatives of all shapes and sizes have been created. Leading companies are working to empower people across the country (and world, in some instances) by putting their core financial literacy competencies to work. For example, PwC is mobilizing its most important asset — its 35,000 people […]

Cassava beer in Ghana – New Beer, New Opportunities

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of our cassava beer, Eagle, in Ghana. It marks not just the launch of a new beer brand, but the opening up of new opportunities for business, consumers and Ghana’s smallholder farmers. It is estimated that more than 70 percent of Ghanaian farms are 3 hectares or smaller […]

Fortifying the Peruvian value chain

Retired teacher Dora Pinto Salazar runs a restaurant in Peru. She is an enterprising woman with boundless optimism, culinary flair and a natural charm with people. Her restaurant is popular and well located, but with the help of entrepreneurship support, she was able to help improve her business further. SABMiller plc’s subsidiary in Peru, Backus, […]

Bridging the Gap for African Women in Business in Uganda

On 2 March, 2013, as part of the 2013 Series, a group of inspiring people came together in Kampala to talk about “Bridging the Gap for African Women in Business”. The event was livestreamed here on Business Fights Poverty, and the focus of a blog by one of the event’s lead organisers, Ida Horner. Hope […]

Igniting a culture of entrepreneurship in South Africa

“Often businesses are not focused on the future – they think small and I encourage them to dream big,” says Olga Lutz. Dignified and determined, Lutz knows the power of big thinking. Despite her modest roots in Zwelihle township outside Hermanus in South Africa, she has developed a small consulting business and skills centre – […]

Arafa: The Tanzanian Solar Engineer Leading the Way for Other Women in Her Village

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to highlight the challenges faced by women in some of the poorest communities in the world and to recognise the impact economic empowerment and increased participation in public life can have on their lives. Arafa, a mother of four from a rural community in Southern Tanzania, was chosen by […]

Impact Accelerator- Social change through the power of entrepreneurship and business

Jesse Grainger, Agora Partnerships Thirty-six entrepreneurs representing 25 companies from Mexico to Chile arrived in Managua, Nicaragua Monday, January 28 for the start of Agora Partnerships’ Entrepreneur Retreat, a four-day kick-off to Agora’s Impact Acceletrator The phrase Impact Accelerator refers to a program that invests and leverages social, human, and financial capital into entrepreneurs working […]

Barbara Crowther: Making international supply chains work for smallholder farmers

Fairtrade Foundation In the wake of recent food scandals, the need to increase focus on building more transparent and accountable food supply chains has once again been in the spotlight. Seeking greater transparency between trading partners, from consumer to retailer to small farmer organisations will also be one of the themes under discussion at a […]

Making international supply chains work for smallholder farmers

Fairtrade Foundation In the wake of recent food scandals, the need to increase focus on building more transparent and accountable food supply chains has once again been in the spotlight. Seeking greater transparency between trading partners, from consumer to retailer to small farmer organisations will also be one of the themes under discussion at a […]

Is there a business case for women as part of global supply chains?

Research commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that many international food companies could improve crop productivity and quality, grow the smallholder supply base and improve access to high value markets when they increase women participation. However, in spite of such evidence problems for African women in business persist and the same research […]

The Virtues of Virtual Volunteering and Online Fundraising

Your employees want to perform community service; they really, really do…but amidst their busy schedules they just can’t seem to find the time. So how about making volunteering easier than ever by offering virtual volunteer opportunities? It’s just one more tool that savvy companies are using to sharpen their employee volunteer programs, and by extension, […]

Voluntourism: More Harm than Good?

I recently came across an interesting article problematizing voluntourism and assessing whether it does more harm than good in communities of the global south. It reminded me of my own concerns with voluntourism that originated in my college years in which I had participated in ‘Alternative Spring Breaks.’ It was considered an ‘alternative’ to what […]

Ossob Mohamud: Voluntourism – More Harm than Good?

I recently came across an interesting article problematizing voluntourism and assessing whether it does more harm than good in communities of the global south. It reminded me of my own concerns with voluntourism that originated in my college years in which I had participated in ‘Alternative Spring Breaks.’ It was considered an ‘alternative’ to what […]

Eric Clayton: The League of Intrapreneurs United

A new force for entrepreneurship is stirring within established corporations: the social intrapreneur. They help businesses innovate from within by fixing their sights on social change as pioneers, while at the same time keeping their hands on the steering wheel as pragmatic leaders. Like social entrepreneurs, social intrapreneurs seek to make a positive impact in […]

Creating Jobs through Youth entrepreneurship in Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire, like many countries all over the world, is facing the difficult issue of how to create jobs for the country’s young population. Already in 2008, Côte d’Ivoire had more than four million unemployed youth (the total population is estimated to be 21 million). At that time, the unemployment rate was 24.2% among 15-24 […]

Professionalizing Pro Bono Volunteering

I’ll volunteer that I’m a big fan of the Taproot Foundation, an organization that’s been an instrumental player in the pro bono movement in 2001 and has been steering the way ever since (matter of fact, I’m a new board member of the organization). Through award-winning programs, groundbreaking thought leadership and partnerships with companies to […]

Interview with Lourenço Bustani: the New Way of Doing Business

“Brands have tremendous difficulty understanding people as people,” according to Lourenço Bustani. He is pointing to the big challenge facing businesses nowadays as they try to deal with people’s needs in a changing economy. Bustani is a Brazilian innovator who decided to show the private market that it is possible to be prosperous without abdicating […]