The Agricultural Models We Want Tomorrow
Rana, 45-year-old Egyptian mother of three, sells her vegetables on a wooden cart at the side of a dusty and bustling road in the heart of the Sayeda Zeinab district of Cairo. She stands there from sunrise to sunset every day to earn enough money to feed her children. Despite a relatively steady flow of […]
Access to Energy Through Mobile Is Changing Lives
Over the last decade, the rapid growth of the mobile industry in developing countries has surprised observers. Access to mobile has increasingly outpaced access to basic services such as energy, water and sanitation. In fact, due to the slow expansion of the traditional energy grid, 1.2 billion people around the world still live without access […]
Meet the Winner: The Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security
Interview with Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA and Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security Winner The winner of the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security epitomises what is possible when you put the farmer at the centre of all you do. The winning research by Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA (the International […]
Meet the Winners: The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security
Interviews with The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security Winners Scientists hold some of the key answers to so many of today’s agricultural challenges at their fingertips. Our support for this community is a vital if we are to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Agropolis founder Louis Malassis knew this, long […]
Delivering on the Promise of Inclusive Business
Back in November 2008, on a hot, dusty day in Dar es Salaam, I vividly remember the moment I met Lillian Kessy. I was immediately struck by her confidence, dignity and determination. Only a year earlier, Lillian was in a desperate financial situation. By the time I met her, she was busy building a small […]
Leveraging the Power of Skillanthropy
A conversation with Marco Ambrosio, North America Growth Strategist for SapientRazorfish. Javier Guerrero of Happy Punk Panda, a Salvadoran digital media company, came to New York through Bpeace’s Fast Runner Program. His top request? To meet with the top digital agencies includingSapientRazorfish. How did SapientRazorfish become a Bpeace Host Company? Before I came to SapientRazorfish, […]
How Host Country Business Can Benefit by Engaging Migrants/Refugees as Consumers and Employees
Whether voluntary or forced, migration trends indicate an increase in flows which require urgent, innovative responses. The estimated numbers of international (across country borders) and internal (within country borders) migrants are 244 million and 740 million respectively, representing one seventh of the world’s population. Migrants move predominantly for voluntary reasons, but 65 million are forcibly […]
Effective Partnering: In Praise of Internal Politicians
The term ‘intrapreneur’ has emerged to describe people who stimulate innovation within their companies. A similar role describes the people who are able to navigate the various parts of their own organisations to enable them to engage in a partnership. Taking a cue from this recent HBR article, we can suggest the term ‘internal politician’ […]
How Can We Create an Enabling Environment for Inclusive Business?
How can we create an enabling environment for inclusive business? When I started to work on this question on behalf of the DCED’s Business Environment Working Group, I expected a relatively straightforward scan of the literature – after all, quite a bit has now been written about what governments can do to help inclusive business […]
How to Achieve Financial inclusion through Data-free Mobile Banking
Two billion people, or 45% of the developing world’s adult population, do not have a bank account, other financial institution or mobile-money service.[1] Financial services are the lifeblood of an economy, giving households the ability to save, invest, and protect themselves against risk. The promise of digital technologies can give more people access to financial […]
Inviting Start-ups (and Up-starts) to Solve Global Problems
The saying goes that two heads are better than one. We believe it gets even better when you bring a lot of different talent together to collaborate and solve urgent global challenges. HelloScience, supported by Novozymes, is an online open innovation network for entrepreneurs, researchers, NGOs, associations and companies. It aims to foster collaboration across […]
Designing for People, Not Problems, Will Help Us Tackle the Global Sanitation Crisis
Toilets have transformed the way we live today. From health, to safety, to convenience – being able to access a toilet from the comfort of our own home no longer seems like a luxury. That’s why to many of us, World Toilet Day – which takes place this week on 19th November – may seem […]
Why the Role of Business is So Crucial in the Fight for a Fairer Tax System
By Radhika Sarin, Policy Adviser, Private Sector Team, Oxfam Oxfam engages with a wide range of actors – citizens, journalists, political leaders, policymakers and allies within the private sector – to achieve the changes we need to build a fairer, more transparent tax system. Two weeks ago, Oxfam released The Heist That No One’s Talking […]
Boldline Accelerator: Bringing Partnerships to Life and Scale
Did you ever have a good idea but felt it was too large to undertake yourself? Not sure how to bring it to life? Or have you had a successful pilot program that you knew had the potential to expand and even more meaningfully advance foreign policy imperatives? Welcome to the Boldline Accelerator for Public-Private […]
2 Billion People Can’t See Clearly. This Business Sees the Answer.
What if I told you we had a breakthrough solution that could access untapped potential in 2.5 billion people? That it could keep people safer and help children learn better? You might envision a fancy new technology, but this magic bullet is surprisingly simple: a pair of eyeglasses. Just this month, Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Target […]
How Financial Inclusion Can Move People Out of Poverty
By Nina Nieuwoudt, Global Product Development, New Consumers Around the world this week, governments, multilaterals, and companies are coming together to celebrate Financial Inclusion Week. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the progress that we’ve made in extending financial access to un-banked and underbanked communities, and also a time to take honest stock of how […]
Creating a Partnership Ecosystem – 6 Rules to Live By
Despite its increasing occurrence in the global community, and its elevation through the Sustainable Development Goals, the act of partnering remains a challenge across all sectors. Doers need to share about what works — and what doesn’t – if we are to create a partnering model that enables sustainability and scale capable of achieving the […]
How Some Health NGOs Can Be Bolder in Their Engagement with Business
I was recently invited to present TPI’s partnering toolkit on NCDs – developed last year in collaboration with Bupa and UICC – at EPHA’s annual conference. The memorable phrase ‘evil puppeteers’ was used in one presentation, in reference to the nefarious and shady activities of corporate lobbyists. While significant progress has undoubtedly been made in […]
Ploughing the Path in a Male-dominated Turf
Husnaara ran to her house smiling from ear to ear as if she could not get any happier. At that point nothing seemed impossible; she could become a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer, go to a good university. She could not wait to give her father the news about her Secondary School Certificate results […]
Food Processing as the Missing Link in Africa’s Value Chains
In 1998, Pauline Kamau started her maize-milling business with a few machines in her mother-in-law’s basement in Kenya. Soon, the business grew to fill a small factory. She hoped to supply her community with high-quality maize flour, which is the local staple food, but demand outstripped her production capacity: “It was a good problem when […]