In Emerging Markets, Entrepreneurial Support Organizations are Key to the COVID-19 Economic Response
In these nations, governments are also implementing stay-at-home orders and enforcing quarantines. Businesses, here and abroad, are shuttered. In response to the pandemic, the U.S. Congress has now approved $660 billion in support to American small businesses, an amount greater than the annual gross domestic product of all but a few large developing countries. In […]
Rapid Innovation Through Partnerships
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread rapidly around the world, creating the worst humanitarian and economic crisis in a generation. The response to this pandemic has needed to be equally rapid and innovation has been required at many levels. Private sector partnerships have been playing an important role in generating creative solutions. Quick examples […]
From ‘Immediate Response’ to ‘Rebuilding Better’: Public Webinar and Online Discussion
On 7 May 2020, Business Fights Poverty held a public webinar which brought together the experts behind our Business and COVID-19 Response Framework and Action Toolkits, designed to guide companies’ immediate response to COVID-19 and efforts to rebuild, with a focus on protecting the most vulnerable. The interactive webinar provided an overview of the Business […]
A Just Transition that Leaves No One Behind
World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) sets out plans to ensure SDG Transformation benchmarks reflect a ‘just transition’ Read the scoping report The WBA aims to build a movement to measure and incentivise business impact towards a sustainable future that works for everyone. We will assess the 2000 most influential companies (SDG2000) against the set of systems-transformations […]
How Can Business Help in the Building of National Coalitions to Fight COVID-19
On 30 April 2020, Business Fights Poverty convened an online discussion, which examined how business can help build national coalitions and collaborations to fight COVID-19. What is making these collaborations work, what lessons need to be learned, and how can these be replicated to make a greater impact? What examples of national collaborative platforms to […]
Bringing Impact Investing to Life
Eight million people die each year because of poor or no access to proper healthcare. As COVID ravages our world fueling poverty, millions more will have less access to quality care. Patient impactful capital has an unprecedented opportunity to leap in and support well-led businesses that are improving or saving the lives of those under-served, […]
COVID-19: How Business and NGOs Can Partner to Support our Global Community Through the Pandemic
As I, like many others in the UK and around the world, continue to work from home, much of my day is informed by hearing from our teams about the devastating impact the COVID-19 pandemic continues to inflict on our global community. While deeply concerning, I could not feel more proud to be part of […]
The Informal Economy is Complicating Government Responses to COVID-19: Will the Crisis Push Millions Toward Formality?
As COVID-19 spreads in countries around the world, governments have already started to address the economic and livelihood challenges posed by the constraints the pandemic has put on behavior and employment. Wealthier OECD countries are designing economic support measures to target the backbone of most economies – the tens of thousands to millions of small businesses. […]
Saving Main Street in the Wake of COVID-19
Why saving small businesses matters Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. Under the most expansive definition, small businesses account for nearly half of the nation’s employees and almost 65 percent of new jobs created. Owning a small business is also associated with faster wealth-building. Since 1990, families in which the head of the household was […]
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 […]
CEOS from 25 countries Call for G20 Support to Help Developing Country Producers Fight Covid-19
At Fairtrade, our mission is to help farmers and workers in some of the world’s poorest countries to get a better deal and escape poverty. We’re deeply worried that this virus will devastate the communities we work with – not only because of its impact on people’s health, but also the very real possibility that […]
UNIDO Helps Tajik Textile Enterprises Diversify into PPE Production
To further help avoid a health crisis, some national textile enterprises are diversifying production to include medical masks and gowns. The move will provide much-needed supplies of protective equipment to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Tajikistan. Two enterprises making this move, Guldaston and Suman, have received assistance from the United Nations Industrial Development […]
Vulnerable Workers in Global Value Chains – Ambitious Collaboration Needed
Global brands and large companies acted swiftly to stabilise cash flow and protect their staff in developed countries. Attention in the next part of the ‘respond and stabilise’ phase needs to shift rapidly and ambitiously to workers throughout the value chain. Damage has already been done, but much can still be done to mitigate the […]
How Start-Ups are Helping to Fight COVID-19? An Emerging Market View: Kerala
Social distancing has been the buzz-word of COVID-19 response globally. But how do you #BreakTheChain of contact in public spaces like airports or bus stations? Kerala start-up, Asimov Robotics has deployed robots at entrances of office buildings and other public places to dispense hand sanitizers and for delivering public awareness messages on precautionary measures to […]
Practical Steps Large Companies Can Take to Support their MSME Partners through the COVID-19 Crisis
As MSMEs struggle, the impact on their communities is also significant as they are often the only source of goods and key services for the most poor and vulnerable populations. For large companies, who rely on MSMEs in their value chains as suppliers (including small-scale farmers), distributors, retailers and customers, beyond the immediate humanitarian imperative, supporting […]
UN SG Launches Road Map to Address COVID-19
Alongside this, the Secretary General has established the United Nations COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to support low- and middle-income countries in the face of the pandemic. All businesses have a crucial role to play in supporting the global response. “The world is facing an unprecedented test. And this is the moment of truth. … […]
Why We Need Social Intrapreneurs More than Ever During COVID-19
The COVID-19 crisis illustrates the need for innovation from within companies by “social intrapreneurs.” A new report from the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Yunus Social Business and Porticus presents best practices from these employees who are working to address environmental or social problems. Beyond providing societal benefits, corporate social intrapreneurship motivates employees, increases innovation and incites […]
The Urgency of a New Social Contract
In the United States, the crisis we are experiencing has laid bare the failure of the current social contract in many ways: the lack of access to healthcare owing to the tying of health insurance to paid employment; the extreme vulnerability of gig-economy workers to a sudden downturn of business; and for many workers, the absence of paid sick leave, inadequate childcare, and insufficient unemployment […]
How businesses respond to Coronavirus has massive ramifications – now and for the future economy that emerges
Here are 8 ideas on elements that are important right now for responsible business practice, despite highly-varied and fast changing contexts: 1. Even if the workforce is being downsized, rapid reactions should not come at the cost of worker rights and representation. Companies should ensure they are working with unions and other workers’ representatives to […]
Cometh the hour, Cometh the Call for Collaborative Action Against COVID-19
Whilst the safety of employees, customers and business partners is paramount, the strength of these relationships will be exposed. Leadership will be tested and commitment to individual and business’ values will be scrutinised. Are the businesses well espoused values just platitudes on the board room wall and the front cover of the annual report, or […]