Complementary Public and Private Finance Sources
Interview with Krishnan Sharma, Senior Economic Affairs Officer in the Financing for Development Office at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs The scale of the need for sources of finance to fund infrastructure, education and financial inclusion, means that once proscribed roles for the public and private sector in financing development have […]
Is Pakistan Really Open for Business?
After my first trip to the country last week, I’d say a resounding yes. And I’d also say that in the long-term, it’s business that will lead Pakistan to prosperity. But that means investment – and, despite the country’s impressive progress in recent years, international investors in Pakistan are in short supply. The Economist recently […]
To Change the World We Must Change Ourselves
The Mediterranean sea has become a graveyard for Africa’s youth. Every day, we see images of what would appear to be a continent racked by conflict and poverty, and people risking – often losing – their lives in an attempt to flee . Yet Africa has 11 of the 20 fastest growing economies in the […]
What are the Principles for Responsible Investment?
Responsible investment is an approach to investment that explicitly acknowledges the relevance to the investor of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, and the long-term health and stability of the market as a whole. The United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment Init… is an international network of investors working together to understand the implications of […]
How Good ESG Standards Boost Business Competitiveness
Madagascar Lychee Export (MLE) is a lychee export station based in the port of Toamasina, Madagascar. The company buys fruits from collectors and local producers, and then processes, packages, and exports the fruit to European markets. Prior to 2010, MLE was a small, family-run business operating in a changing industry with rising standards and demands. […]
From Responsible Investment Standards to Implementation
Over the past ten years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have moved from the fringe to the centre stage – both amongst emerging market focused private equity investors and amongst businesses themselves. These issues have emerged as a material concern as result of various factors – including the need to manage reputational risks associated […]
SDGs: Will Business Take up the Baton?
I remember quite clearly when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were being launched, a set of 8 goals with targets on key development indicators such as absolute poverty, maternal health and primary education. I was at that time based in India and felt that this was just another UN top-down initiative that would be a […]
Access to Sustainable Technology Through Microfinance
Pollinate Energy improved the lives of India’s urban poor by providing access to sustainable technology through microfinance, using a network of local distributors, termed ‘Pollinators’. Social impacts Children were able to study at night and adults able to do household work later, saving the daylight hours for productive income-generating work. Customers improved their health by […]
Financial Inclusion for the 'Base of the Pyramid'
Barclays has formed partnerships with international NGOs CARE International and Plan UK to give poor people, especially the young, in Africa and Asia access to basic financial services for the first time, and the skills to save and manage their money effectively. Social impacts 369,000 women and men, including 245,000 youths, were given access to […]
Financial Inclusion for the ‘Base of the Pyramid’
Barclays has formed partnerships with international NGOs CARE International and Plan UK to give poor people, especially the young, in Africa and Asia access to basic financial services for the first time, and the skills to save and manage their money effectively. Social impacts 369,000 women and men, including 245,000 youths, were given access to […]
Essential Insurance Coverage for HIV+ Community
The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty, Finalist, 2015 AllLife, a South African provider of insurance to people with HIV, has pioneered an approach that proves it is possible to insure the “uninsurable”, and to do so in a financially and socially sustainable way. Social impacts AllLife improved the health and mortality […]
Could THIS be the Solution to Global Poverty?
Recently an organization named FXB published a full-page ad in The New York Timesunder the headline “We know how to end global poverty.” The piece reported that “the journal Science just published a study proving what works to raise people permanently out of global poverty.” Because Science is unquestionably a credible source of information, this […]
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 Finalists: Unilever Global Development Award
The Unilever Global Development Award supported by Business Fights Poverty, identifies business programmes that are demonstrating a positive impact in addressing global poverty as captured in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Addressing these challenges is vital to achieving the transformative change needed to create a fairer society and a more sustainable future for all. […]
Getting to Zero and Beyond: Private Sector Contribution
The Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has been an unprecedented development challenge and has prompted a huge international response, including from business who established the Ebola Private Sector Mobilisation Group (EPSMG). I recently joined the team in DFID leading the work in Sierra Leone, having spent the last 18 months developing DFID’s […]
Delivering Business Value Through Smart CR
Speaking at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ event in London, Zelda Bentham, Group Head of Environment & Climate Change, shares how Aviva derives business value by taking an integrated and business driven approach to delivering environmental and social impacts at scale. At Aviva, we continually seek to maximise the long term value delivered by […]
The Right Language for Embedding Sustainability
At SABMiller, we understand that our profitability depends on healthy communities, growing economies and the responsible use of scarce natural resources. Last year we launched a new sustainable development ambition we call Prosper with five major goals and associated targets: accelerating growth and social development through our value chains; making beer the natural choice for […]
The Benefits of Asset Versus Cash Transfer Programmes
Is it better to give a cow or cash? Are such approaches hand-outs or a hand up for the extreme poor? In the development sector, we often pose simple either/or questions. Yet these simple questions are more complex than may meet the eye, and the answers vary greatly based on beneficiaries’ background, local contexts, the […]
Local Investments for Local Farmers
Tanzania is a country of farmers. Most farmers own less than one hectare of land to grow produce to feed their families, whatever surplus they generate is used to fund their children’s education, healthcare and family emergencies. Small holder farmers are already vulnerable to crop failure, drought and poverty and this will be confounded by […]
Innovative Funding for Early Childhood Education
As fairly recent additions to the development acronym pool, Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) and Development Impact Bonds (DIBs) have been a source of increasing global interest and debate. These are funding mechanisms encouraging private sector capital flow to a new form of impact investing through tripartite agreements between three groups: investors who provide upfront capital, […]