Poverty Footprint: A Unique Tool to Assess Business Impacts on Sustainable Development
By Ursula Wynhoven, Chief, Social Sustainability, Governance & Legal, UN Global Compact and Helen Van Hoeven, Deputy Director, Private Sector Department, Oxfam America As engines of economic growth, global companies have wide-ranging opportunities to positively affect the lives of the poor. Yet, company impacts on people living in poverty are largely not understood and under-reported. […]
Collaborating Across Sectors to Further Global Health
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 specific goals, and 169 associated targets that set out quantitative objectives across the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, all to be achieved by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Health has been recognized as crucial for sustainable human development (Alleyne et al., 2013) and an essential contributor […]
Supporting Cacao Producers in Latin America
UK Chocolate Week celebrates the world of fine chocolate from 10th to 16th October, 2016. Chocolate Week aims to promote fine flavour chocolate, independent artisan chocolatiers and chocolate companies who work in direct partnership with cocoa farmers, encouraging consumers to pay a fairer price for their chocolate. Christian Aid has been actively engaged in high […]
The 2016 SDG Business Forum – A Recap
The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held from July 11-20 2016 at United Nations Headquarters in New York is an annual platform for reviewing progress and guiding global efforts on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. During the first HLPF oriented towards the SDGs, the global business community was present […]
Sustainable Business and Sustainable Development – Two Sides of the Same Coin
Bhaskar Chakravorti explores how achieving the sustainable development goals is dependent on global business taking a leading role, but equally, the SDGs will help business orchestrate action. The UN General Assembly committed to “eliminate poverty in all its forms everywhere” by 2030, when it met in New York last year. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) […]
Big Opportunities and Inspiring Examples on World Hepatitis Day
A few years ago I had the privilege of leading a team of highly committed health professionals to provide healthcare services to some of the most marginalised people in our world: rural communities in South Sudan who were enduring immeasurable suffering from the 22 year civil war and ongoing ethnic conflicts. We trained nurses, midwives […]
How Can Sustainable Development Remain a Priority?
Bhaskar Chakravorti explores innovation in sustainable development amid Brexit, anti-globalisation and a worldwide slowdown. The summer is heating up with reminders that the first anniversary of the launch of the2030 Agenda is not far – and when it comes to implementing sustainable development worldwide, time passes rather quickly. The high level political forum (HLPF) on […]
Saving the Lives of One Million Children
GSK’s partnership with Save the Children is a Finalist in the Unilever Global Development Award supported by Business Fights Poverty. We asked them some questions about their programme and the global development impacts achieved. Q) What challenge does the GSK-Save the Children partnership serve to change? In 2015, 5.9 children under the age of five […]
Increasing Supply and Demand for Healthcare in Kenya
In a country where one child in 19 dies before their fifth birthday, a typical scenario in Kenya’s western county of Bungoma can be; a mother-to-be is feeling ill; she is not sure whether she should go to hospital, but the husband doesn’t think it’s important, so she stays home. Or the husband is supportive, […]
To Help Save Children’s Lives, We Need to Be Bold
Only by breaking down boundaries and working together in unprecedented ways can we tackle the entrenched issues which cause millions of children to continue to die each year from preventable causes. That was the shared understanding which brought GSK and Save the Children together three years ago, creating a groundbreaking partnership to help save one […]
Unleashing Inclusive Business Towards the SDGs
The Business Call to Action (BCtA) – a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) hosted global platform showcasing private sector contribution to the SDGs through inclusive business – in collaboration with Inclusive Business Accelerator (IBA), SNV Netherlands Development Organization (SNV), The Partnering Initiative (TPI) and Business Fights Poverty hosted an invitation- only event to discuss how […]
Preparing to Stop Drug-resistant Malaria
By David Reddy, CEO, Medicines for Malaria Venture and Jürgen Brokatzky-Geiger, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, Novartis. No child should ever die from a mosquito bite. Yet, today, in an era of extraordinary medical advancement, a child dies of mosquito-borne malaria every two minutes. Last year, this agonizing blood disease caused by the malaria parasite […]
Pointing the Way for Cross-sector Collaborations
One of the most striking aspects of the current healthcare landscape is the way that the whole world is now so interconnected and so interdependent. This is changing the way we see health, creating a new global perspective that will affect the way we need to act. Against this backdrop, we need to understand better […]
Four Reasons Why GSK and Save the Children’s Partnership Stands Out
In recent years, collaboration between companies, governments and civil society has become an integral part of the development landscape. Its importance has been underlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which all sectors recognise cannot be achieved without partnership and the contribution of the private sector. Growing numbers of businesses are entering into partnerships, whether […]
Moving Beyond Transactional Relationships
Over the last several years, models of business / NGO collaboration have begun to shift quite significantly. Five years ago, the relationship between a company and an NGO was most likely to be transactional in nature: a donation or sponsorship from the company or, in the case of a company’s social investment, a fee-for-service arrangement […]
Making the Global Goals Our Business
Not everyone gets to live their dream job, but I feel extremely lucky and grateful that I do. I lead GSK’s global employee volunteering efforts, including PULSE, our flagship program. PULSE is a skills-based volunteering program that matches up to 100 high-performing employees each year with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in need of their expertise […]
Unleashing Inclusive Business Towards the SDGs
The Business Call to Action (BCtA) in collaboration with the UNDP Zambia Country Office, The Partnering Initiative (TPI), the Inclusive Business Accelerator (IBA) and Business Fights Poverty recently held a high-level breakfast meeting for business representatives in Lusaka, Zambia. The aim of the meeting held on the 15th of April 2016 was to discuss how […]
Three Ways Your Business Can Use the SDGs
Following the launch of the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development, there is general agreement that these targets can only be achieved if all areas of society, including governments, NGOs and the private sector, act together. Under the new framework, businesses now have a more explicit, central role in ‘ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality & […]
Co-creation Shaking Up the Health Sector
Imagine that you are the founder of a healthcare start-up. You have passion, experience, and a strong team of changemakers around you – but you lack the resources to take your organisation to the next level of growth. Now imagine that you are given the opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading healthcare […]
The Global Goals and the Ruggie Principles
“The Sustainable Development Goals represent the biggest opportunity for awareness-raising on business and human rights since the UN Guiding Principles [on Business and Human Rights] were introduced.” So said a respected speaker at the recent Business and Human Rights Symposium organised by the International Organisation of Employers. Equally, there is a consensus that the skills, […]