Improving Smallholders Farmers’ Access to Fertilizers in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa represents 10% of the total global population, yet cereal crop yields are only one-third as high as in developing Asia and one-tenth as high as in the United States. Because of such low agricultural productivity – the lowest in the world, the continent spends roughly US$35 billion a year on food imports. The […]
Collaboration: The Essential Key to Intrapreneurism
Today I interviewed Darian Stibbe, Executive Director, The Partnering Initiative, and Milan Samani, Director, The Intrapraneur Lab, about the connection between partnership and intrapreneurship. Listen to the full audio below. Some of the questions we talked about were: What is it about partnerships that can be so important to intrapreneurs? What are the main challenges […]
Ebola Outbreak – Could PPPs Be The Solution?
The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia is so out of control that governments have resorted to approaches similar to the medieval-era disease control approach last used in 1918: the “cordon sanitaire” whereby no one is allowed out of a barricade established around an infected area. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), […]
Once A Victim, Then A Survivor, Now an Entrepreneur
I often recount that when I started HERA France I incorrectly believed that I did not know a single woman around me who had been a victim of violence. Now I can firmly say I know many. And I am not speaking of the women who are enrolled in my program, but of the countless […]
Moving to the City
Every second, two people move into a city. Across the world, that’s a million people every week. Many are in search of a better life but, when they arrive, what they find is not what they were expecting. The world is driven by self-interest and nowhere is this more evident than in cities. Behaviour is […]
Participatory Market Research: New Target Group Insight
Photo Credit: Claudia Knobloch Sawing a bed in half to create bunks that will fit in a small room may seem strange at first glance, but look deeper: Furniture on offer in Brazilian stores does not meet the needs of low-income customers. As a result, these consumers either modify what’s available, or spend more money […]
Design Expo Report 2014
Engaging the Private Sector in the Post-2015 Agenda
Philippe Scholtès and Tim Wall consider the new forms of partnership required to implement innovative business models that respond to commercial imperatives, while also delivering on the development front. In the last two decades, increasing economic growth rates in many developing countries have reshaped the global economy and opened up new opportunities for learning and […]
Harnessing Scottish Business Innovation for Development
What a time to be in Glasgow. What a time to be Scottish. It was an overwhelming sense of pride that I felt during the recent Opening Ceremony of the 20th Commonwealth Games on one of the hottest days of the year. However there was one other equally strong emotion that I felt as I […]
The Direct Impact of Microfinance
Would you invest in a business if you knew it could make 210% net profit in less than 12 months? When staff at Friska, a small business based in Bristol, decided to provide a loan of £140 via Deki to Lydia Nyirongo in Malawi, they believed the loan would help Lydia change her life. What […]
Early-stage Impact Investing: A Call For Action
(www.seedinit.org) The exponential growth of small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in Africa, Asia and Latin America has contributed significantly to the burgeoning green economy. Every year more and more small and green entrepreneurs are creating innovative ways to produce sustainable products and services that are having wide-reaching social and economic impacts on the world’s […]
Take a Breather with a Quartet of Social Intrapreneurs
It all started with four hands on a piano. I met Melody McLaren, an Associate at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in London, during a duet we improvised based on Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”. OK, I doubt we would have rocked the charts with our recording, but our interests in jazz sparked off […]
Is The Global Digital Divide Still Widening?
Three billion unique mobile subscribers? Yes, it is a huge number. To learn that another mobile SIM is activated every passing second around the world is overwhelming. And today mobile technology is the easiest entry point to the internet too. Looking at thisICT uptakewe tend to believe that the digital divide – the gap in […]
Employee Volunteerism Ignites Social Innovation At GSK
Photo: Lisa Kenyon, PULSE Volunteer at AMREF- Kenya By Ahsiya Posner Mencin, Ph.D. Director, PULSE Volunteer Partnership How do you capture the fresh insights and ideas that about 100 high-performing GSK employees develop each year as a result of their PULSE assignments? This is a question that the PULSE Team and I have asked ourselves […]
Improving Healthcare Access in Developing Nations
Outside Kenya’s capital Nairobi lies the small farming town of Embu, which is filled with roadside stalls where farmers sell their mango, potato and rice crops. This remote region, nestled near the hills of Mount Kenya, is the setting for the second phase of the Familia Nawiri (Healthy Family) initiative, one example of a Novartis […]
Going The Extra Mile For Health
In the distant corners of Africa, entrepreneurs deliver goods and services across bumpy roads, crossing brimming rivers and rickety bridges, climbing steep hills and descending treacherous valleys. It is a classic story of conquering odds to reach the unreached. This story once inspired a potent question: If a company can deliver soft drinks to the […]
A Nation’s Coming Of Age: Malawi At 50
Last month was a very significant one for the country known as Africa’s ‘Warm Heart’. Fifty years on from the birth of Malawi’s independence, July provided a poignant moment to evaluate the progress that’s been made across the past five decades. But the anniversary is an equally important time to take stock of the challenges […]
Finding Finance For Infrastructure in Africa
Africa has a massive deficit in infrastructure, one that is holding back the social and economic growth in every country on the continent. The World Bank estimates that if African countries could catch up with South Korea’s stock of infrastructure economic growth could be increased by 2.6 percentage points, in many of the least developed […]
Seven Reasons To Be Optimistic About Africa
This piece originally appeared on the World Economic Forum’s blog. When I meet young Africans who have graduated from overseas universities, I am struck by their excitement for Africa. They have a vision for their countries of origin, and a passion to return to, and invest in, their homelands. This new desire for engagement is […]
No Smoke Without Fire!
What happens when an engineer meets a climate change expert ? This is the story of One Earth Designs, a social enterprise that develops sustainable solutions responding to the need of the rural communities in the Himalayas. The Global Alliance for Clean Stoves states that “exposure to smoke from traditional stoves and open fires – […]