Women Smallholders Will Drive Africa’s Transition to Regenerative Agriculture
An estimated 140 million people in Africa are facing acute food insecurity[1], yet, in Kenya alone, 50% of all productive soil is badly degraded. Worse still, because of record droughts, half of Kenyan farmers have harvested nothing in the last four seasons. Regenerative agriculture techniques offer the world’s poorest farmers a lifeline, restoring soils and […]
Why Investing in Informal Women Workers is Critical to Maintaining Resilient Supply Chains
Over 60% of the world’s employed population make their living through informal work, with no access to formal contracts or protection. Women make up a disproportionate percentage of informal workers, with 740 million women’s livelihoods dependent on the informal economy globally. Lack of secure employment contracts or social protection for these workers means that when […]
NEW REPORT – The Case for Living Wages
Work is often lauded as the most important route out of poverty. There is little doubt that work can and even should provide a way out, but for hundreds of millions of people, this is simply not the case. In the lower-income countries that make the biggest contributions to global supply chains, large numbers of […]
The path to living wages for low-paid workers worldwide
Recent crises worldwide have highlighted how fragile our global supply chains can be when disaster strikes. Whether it’s Covid-19, climate or conflict-related, these crises underscore the importance of ensuring the people who produce our goods and food earn enough to protect their livelihoods from shocks. At Fairtrade, we are committed to achieving living wages for […]
Living income and gender: adopting gender transformative approaches to improve livelihoods
The concept of ‘Living Income’ has grown in popularity as a way to improve livelihoods for smallholders. It goes a step beyond traditional notions of poverty alleviation: recognising that a household income can come from multiple sources and emphasising decent living and resilience over basic subsidence and survival. Where does gender come into this conversation? […]
Spotlighting Fairtrade and Aldi UK’s ‘Dignity for All’ – a programme for female flower workers
“Women have the potential of taking up leadership positions and roles, unlike in previous years when women were considered irrelevant and/or unable to lead and work equally as men”. This sentiment may seem like a given to most readers, but for the 25-year-old flower farm worker from Ethiopia who said these words it was a […]
Scaling Up Impact With Carbon Finance
In partnership with Relief International and Sustainable Development and Relief Associates (SUDRA), ClimateCare developed Gyapa – a Gold Standard project which supports health and livelihoods for families in Ghana by providing clean cookstoves. One of the largest and longest running cookstove projects in the world, more than 20,000 stoves are produced in local factories each […]
The Kenyan woman changing young farmers’ futures
Twenty years ago, Victorine Atieno Owino began her career as a volunteer at the Ugunja Community Resource Center in southwest Kenya’s Siaya County. She filled her days organizing books as a librarian and handling paperwork as an administrative assistant, supporting the center’s work building the skills of local community members. But a common need began […]
Empowering underserved women around the globe
A look at inspiring inclusive business ventures and supporters to underserved women In Zambia, beekeeping used to be men’s work. Making beehives from barks and hanging them high up into trees requires strength. Later, farmers spend days in the fields to harvest honey. For women with children, this is hardly possible. This is gradually changing. […]
Boda Boda, Economic Development and the Future of Work
The term BodaBoda originated from Busia County, Kenya in the late 80s. It was used to refer to bicycle taxis that drove passengers and light luggage across the border town of Malaba. The cyclists of these taxis would shout, “Border!Border!Border……” to attract those that were heading towards the Ugandan border. Thus the adoption of the […]
Five reasons why digital work may help promote inclusion of youth with disabilities
Digital jobs are opening up important new work opportunities for youth with disabilities in developing countries. The COVID‒19 pandemic has accelerated the expansion of jobs which offer flexibility, accommodations for disability and functional access for remote communities. In our new report “Digital Jobs for Youth with Disabilities,” S4YE highlights strategies that programs have used to increase inclusion of […]
Sea freight strengthens Kenya-to-Europe flower supply chain
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, global supply chains were hit hard, affecting millions of workers across the globe. In the Kenyan floriculture sector, the subsequent 25-40% air freight reduction has meant lower export rates, a supply slowdown, and loss of jobs for thousands. At FlowerWatch, we’re involved in a project of the United Kingdom’s Foreign, […]
Why living wages will help flower workers to ‘bloom back better’ after Covid-19
The flower and plant sector is an incredibly important source of hundreds of thousands of jobs in low-income countries, and is particularly vital for women who make up around half of the workforce. Globally, the export of cut flowers was worth over £6.75bn in 2018. However, with prices paid to flower farms for their products […]
Over 300 practical tools to make your youth employment initiative a success
Youth unemployment in developing countries is a pressing problem – youth face multiple constraints that affect both their decision to enter the labor force and their access to employment. And the Covid-19 has further exacerbated these issues. According to the World Bank youth and women are particularly negaitively impacted by the effects of the pandemic. […]
Inclusive digital payments solutions for the garment sector workers in Bangladesh
In March, when we announced the taka 5000 crore stimulus package (about $600 million) to pay workers’ salaries in export-oriented sectors, particularly ready-made garments which account for over 80% of the country’s exports, we encountered a major roadblock. Only 1.5 million of the 4 million workers were paid digitally. The rest were paid in cash. […]
Going beyond the poverty line
Ensuring resilient livelihoods and sustained employment for vulnerable communities was already a stretch pre-Covid-19. For those communities lacking a stable income, the impact has been inconceivable. With border closures and travel restrictions, the downturn in trade has massively affected the income and employment of these vulnerable communities, especially the self-employed. Currently, more than 475 million […]
Scalability, Sustainability and Participation in Value Chain
This is the second in a three part series, published in the lead up to Standard Chartered’s Futuremakers Forum online events 2020. Join the conversation exploring innovative ideas and tangible solutions for financing young entrepreneurs. Supporting youth-led enterprises is good for business and vital for inclusive economic growth. According to the World Bank, SMEs represent […]
Three Promises Lidl Has Made to Protect its Food Workers
But there is another group of frontline food workers doing the same, hidden from view, those who produce the products we are all trying to buy, such as tea, coffee, prawns, fruit and vegetables. Even before Coronavirus, Oxfam research highlighted workers’ vulnerability, earning low wages on insecure contracts, often with poor sick pay and hygiene arrangements. In 2018, we launched the Behind the […]
Businesses Share Employment Practices to Eradicate Poverty
Last Thursday was International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Whilst ending poverty is a motivating goal, it is not always clear how to work towards this lofty ambition through day-to-day business operations. In a new toolkit, Reducing Poverty through Employment, members of the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC) have collaborated to share their experience […]
A Conversation on The Future of Work at the 2019 Concordia Annual Summit
To mark the launch of a new Challenge supported by Walmart on the Future of Work, Enrique Ostalé, Regional CEO of UK, Latin America and Africa at Walmart International, and Zahid Torres-Rahman, Founder and CEO of Business Fights Poverty joined Brad Staples, CEO of APCO at Concordia’s 2019 Annual Summit, to speak about International Future […]