Digital Inclusion Isn’t a Technology Challenge. It’s a People Challenge.
After spending several days with teachers, police officers, community organisations and older learners all involved in our work in Romania in May, I came away with a simple conviction. When it comes to social impact, we spend a lot of time talking about strategy, innovation and scale. But the difference is rarely strategy. It is […]
Dignity Is a Business Strategy
What 15 years in clinical practice and two years in Haiti taught me about the cost of overlooking the human experience I was 19 years old when I went to Haiti. I spent two years there doing service work, building physical structures, laying infrastructure, and spending a lot of time teaching people how to lead […]
Understanding the First Mile: Strategies and Tools for First Mile Inclusion in Traceability and Due Diligence Systems
The first mile, the journey from producer to the first aggregation or processing point, is a critical yet often overlooked stage in agricultural supply chains. Across cocoa, coffee, rubber and palm oil, this stage is shaped by smallholders, informal intermediaries, and complex social, economic and logistical realities. Understanding the first mile is essential for building […]
Supply Chain Resilience Starts with Household Resilience: What Other Sectors can Learn from Cocoa
The stability of global supply chains is shaped by decisions made in individual homes, not just corporate boardrooms. If farmers can’t absorb shocks, neither can the supply chains that depend on them. Agribusiness supply chains face mounting pressures from climate change, price volatility, labour issues and deepening rural poverty. Cocoa is a stark example: 70% […]
AI is Working for Women Entrepreneurs — But Only at the Edges. For Real Benefits, We Need Targeted Action.
Imagine a woman entrepreneur running a small restaurant. She may be running more than one small business, or balancing the business alongside another job. Like most women entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries, she is also carrying a substantial share of caregiving responsibilities – for children, older relatives, or both. She began using AI around […]
The Missing Link in Water Stewardship: Why Gender Equity is Not an Add-On
As pressure on freshwater resources increases, it is time for business to ask not only ‘How much water are we using?’ but also ‘Who bears the cost when we use it and what is our responsibility to them?’ Water is more than a resource. It is a strategic asset that underpins the health of communities, […]
Good Intentions Don’t Transform Supply Chains. Better Design Could.
UN Women’s 2025 Unfinished Business report puts it plainly: the defining challenge for the private sector on gender equality is closing the gap between commitment and actual outcomes. After years of working inside global supply chains and development programmes, we think that gap exists for a very specific reason. It is not a motivation challenge. […]
Women Entrepreneurs: The Untapped Engine of Global Economic Growth
On Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, we should recognise an often-overlooked truth: women entrepreneurs are not just good for advancing equality – they are essential to the world’s economic future. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that if women participated in economies equally to men, some countries could boost GDP by up to 40 per cent. Yet, […]
Views from the Global Goals Summit on Business Fights Poverty’s New Report: Making the Five Bridges to 2045 a Reality
The Business Fights Poverty community felt broadly positive about the future despite the challenging headwinds (from geopolitical uncertainty to pushback on ESG funds and everything in between). It is probably fair to say that most felt in agreement with the recent Accenture survey ,which found that 88% of CEOs see the business case for sustainability […]
Inclusive Advertising: The Case for Marcomms for a Better World
Most – perhaps all – of the world’s challenges are founded in large part on problematic attitudes and beliefs. Among these challenges, discrimination based on race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation and more is arguably the most pernicious. It exacts huge economic costs and, more fundamentally, ruins and even ends lives. It robs us all […]
Progress Has Stalled in Closing the Mobile Internet Gender Gap; Why Does it Matter, and What Can We Do?
In today’s increasingly connected world, mobile phones and mobile internet can transform lives by providing connectivity, information, healthcare, education, e-commerce, financial services and income opportunities from anywhere. Mobile remains the primary – and often only – way that people in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) access the internet, especially women.The mobile internet gender gap. While more […]
Turning Potential into Prosperity – How Business Can Help Refugees Thrive
Europe is home to 25.6 million forcibly displaced people, including 13.6 million refugees (1). With the intensification of climate change and the persistence of conflict and instability in the world, the number of refugees and forcibly displaced people is only going to grow. The business case for integrating migrants more broadly into the global economy […]
How Garment, Footwear and Textile Businesses Can Improve Women Workers’ Career Advancement
The global garment, footwear, and textiles industry is facing a growing wave of disruption—from climate change and automation to shifting trade patterns and increasing demands for equity and transparency. As these pressures reshape the future of work, they present not only significant challenges but also an opportunity to reimagine advancement and leadership in the sector […]
When Opportunity Knocks: Three Keys for Creating Inclusive Growth through Sales-Agent Models
Valentine Abayisenga, a young community animal health worker (CAHW) in Rwanda’s Nyamasheke District, struggled to find stable employment after graduating from high school. Meanwhile, in the same community, farmer Didace Kabayiza faced risks in smallholder agriculture. Without any financial protection for his livestock, he recalled feeling “…anxious whenever it rained, as thunder and lightning often […]
Co-creation with Community Organisations Vital to Effectively Address Health Inequality
Climate change impacts are increasingly causing extreme weather events which have a detrimental effect on public health. The Planetary Health Check Report 2024 states: “The impacts of warming include, but are not limited to, modified extreme events like torrential rainfall, floods, heatwaves, and droughts.”1 The World Health Organization predicts that between 2030 and 2050, climate […]
Empowering Women in Supply Chains: Celebrating the Impact of the WOW Programme
As we celebrate International Women’s Day #IWD2025, I am delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate the work and achievements of the Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) programme, which comes to a close this month. WOW has been working to advance women’s economic empowerment in supply chains for 7 years, and I have been […]
The Evolving Landscape of Gender Equality
Despite decades of progress on gender equality, the journey towards a truly equitable world remains challenging and constant. As a responsible business and sustainability community, we’ve witnessed an ongoing evolution in how we approach this complex issue. The early 2010s saw a surge of corporate commitments focused on empowering millions of women through training and […]
DEI: Do or Die
When Elon Musk posted on X at the end of last year that “DEI must DIE”, he encapsulated the growing backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly in the United States. This pushback has intensified with Donald Trump’s return to office, where one of his first Executive Orders targeted DEI. The effects are already […]
From Risk to Resilience: The Power of Women in Global Supply Chains
Download the Toolkit for Business: Investing in Women’s Economic Empowerment to Strengthen Supply Chain Resilience. Supply chains are under immense pressure — from escalating geopolitical tensions and the impacts of climate change to conflicts and economic instability. Companies must somehow navigate these risks whilst simultaneously driving growth, embracing sustainability, satisfying investor demands and meeting ever-evolving […]