Category: Economic Development

The Business Case for Employee Volunteering – Case #1

Case #1 – Employee Engagement Many companies have employee volunteer programs, but for many companies in Europe, Canada and the US these programs are underfunded, underdeveloped and underutilized. This blog series is meant to offer a number of compelling reasons why your business needs to invest (a bit more) in employee volunteering. Employee Engagement: The […]

The Painful Story of Contracting in Afghanistan: I know a guy…

When we first started our local procurement project in January 2006, convincing international organizations to buy locally from Afghan businesses was a tough sell. Buyers had a laundry list of reasons that condemned local businesses to small value work, usually using the “I-know-a-guy” method of procurement. When the biggest spender operating in the country started […]

Clare Melford: A focus on ‘responsible marketing’ with the Bailey Review

As a former MTV executive, I was very interested to read about the Bailey Review (‘Letting Children be Children’), published in the UK media last week. It recommends inter alia that music videos should have age ratings to protect children from sexual images and lyrics. Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union, has led a […]

Supply Chain Risk and Sustainability: Potential for Partnership

Markets and Value Chains, Private Sector and Markets Programme, Overseas Development Institute Uncertainty abounds. The global climate is changing – catastrophic … cropping up with alarming frequency. Weather patterns are increasingly unpredictable; rains fail or floods destroy whole settlements. Commodity prices are rising; energy and fuel costs are increasing, (oil-based) fertiliser is increasingly expensive and […]

The socio-economic impact of SABMiller in Ghana

Last month on this site, we profiled the prolific work of Professor Ethan Kapstein and his quest to tell the story of business’ contribution to development through hard data. For all those who have worked in this field for a while, and who have come to crave more than anecdotes and stories, the significance of […]

Désirée Abrahams: Human Rights Impact Assessments are Like a Promising School Band

Last week, I attended the 31st International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) Conference, held in the stunning, colonial Méxican city of Puebla. I was honoured to be invited to this amazing conference; not only to listen and learn from those working at all levels in the impact assessment (IA) field but also because the session […]

Driving and Supporting Effective and Systemic Multi-Sector Collaboration

Nearly two decades ago, the UN’s Rio Declaration had the goal of “establishing a new and equitable global partnership through the creation of new levels of cooperation among States, key sectors of societies and people”. And then a decade ago, the major outcome of the Johannesburg follow-up Summit (Rio+10) was around the launching of 350 […]

DFID's New Paper On The Role Of The Private Sector In Fighting World Poverty

Business Action for Africa Over recent years, the UK has increasingly emphasized the role of the private sector in its international development strategy. The Department for International Development (DFID) has been a pioneer among its peers, championing initiatives such as the Business Call to Action, the Business Innovation Facility and the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund. […]

DFID’s New Paper On The Role Of The Private Sector In Fighting World Poverty

Business Action for Africa Over recent years, the UK has increasingly emphasized the role of the private sector in its international development strategy. The Department for International Development (DFID) has been a pioneer among its peers, championing initiatives such as the Business Call to Action, the Business Innovation Facility and the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund. […]

Bridging the Worlds of Impact Investing and Inclusive Business

Attending this month’s SOCAP/Europe conference (see my blog about the event), I have been struck by the huge potential for connecting the world’s of impact investing and inclusive business. Both are effectively about using private capital to bring about positive social and environmental change. Very often both are focused on supporting small and medium enterprises […]

Sharon D’Agostino: Looking Past the Data to See the Face of Motherhood

Often, people committed to global health are surrounded by statistics – and it can be easy for numbers to lose their meaning. Our work on maternal and child health issues has shown me staggering gaps in the quality of life for women and children around the world, but even I sometimes have trouble putting data […]

Making Broadband Accessible For All

Blog by Matthew Kirk, Group External Affairs Director, Vodafone Group and Steve Bratt, Chief Executive Officer, World Wide Web Foundation, about the twelfth in the Series of Policy Papers, launched on 19 May 2011, from the Vodafone Socio-Economic Impact of Mobile (SIM) Advisory Panel. To download the report, click here. Most governments rightly see getting […]

“Cracking the Code” on Access to new Housing for the BoP in Latin America

Post by Susan Olsen, Lead Specialist, Opportunities for the Majority Initiative, Inter-American Development Bank We know markets often fail the poor. The “Opportunities for the Majority” Initiative (OMJ) of the IDB seeks to develop and promote market-based solutions to help solve the market failures that prevent the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) from accessing quality […]

Convergence Economy: Re-thinking International Development in a Converging World

Last week at the WEF in Cape Town, Accenture published a new point of view paper, “Convergence Economy: Re-thinking International Development in a Converging World”. The paper talks about the emergence of a marketplace for development outcomes where “silos give way to systems, competency trumps incumbency and markets matter more than historical or outdated mandates”. […]

Joe Phelan and Olive Boles: 10 ways to engage the private sector in health

Investing in the health of women and children is not only the right thing to do, it also builds stable, peaceful and productive societies. It reduces poverty, stimulates economic growth, is cost-effective and crucially, helps women and children realise their fundamental human rights. In September last year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched “Every Woman […]

The GIM Initiative Releases 60 New Case Studies of Inclusive Business Models

The “Growing Inclusive Markets” (GIM) Initiative, a UNDP-led global multi-stakeholder research and advocacy initiative on inclusive business models (i.e. financially sustainable models that include the poor on the demand side as clients and customers, and on the supply side as employees, producers and business owners along the value chain), has recently released 60 new case […]

Free Resource Guide on Inclusive Business

This week Business Action for Africa and its partners are hosting a series of events in Cape Town focusing on the important connections between business and development in Africa. The first of these will look at “inclusive business models” that expand access to goods, services and jobs amongst low-income communities through company value chains, with […]