A Collaborative Approach to Ending HIV/AIDS
Many families around the world live in communities with limited access to resources and where doctors are hard to come by. Among these families, many children are also infected with one of the world’s deadliest diseases – HIV/AIDS. While this may sound like improbable hardship, more than 240,000 children – mostly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa […]
Economically Empowering Women at Scale in South Africa
Ngoetsana Sehlabo is known by her community in Orange Farm, South Africa as Mampho. For many years she was a hawker, on the streets selling a local dish called ‘atcha’. In 2012, she branched out and set up her own store – Mampho’s Fast Food – to sell food, drinks and snacks. After a year, […]
Innovative Partnerships to Empower Girls
Across the developing world, adolescent girls face the triple disadvantage of living in rural areas where education isn’t a priority; having limited power and access to resources; and being undervalued by their communities simply because they’re girls. While there is recognition that investing in girls is key to fighting poverty, not many know just how […]
Examining the Keys to Power
Along with all good Plan employees, the belief that education can lift children from a future of poverty to one of opportunity is one which I firmly hold. We should all know the facts; that a girl who makes it through both a relevant and quality primary and secondary education is: less likely to experience […]
Girl Power in the Pipeline
Meet Laxmi: an ambitious young woman from India, netball player, confident leader and now, aspiring lawyer. Just three years ago, the introduction to Laxmi would have been a bit different. Coming from an underserved community in Delhi, her chances to go beyond basic public primary school were slim. So, what changed? She enrolled in Goal […]
Women's Economic Empowerment Key to Alleviating Poverty
Around the globe, women and girls make up 70 percent of the 1.5 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, and the key to addressing this issue begins with their economic empowerment. Business ownership is a powerful vehicle for women to build more assets, but, perhaps more importantly, investing in women yields […]
Sport as Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls
Head, Education and Girls Programmes, Standard Chartered No single entity can address an international development challenge in isolation. Effective interventions require a suite of resources, networks, expertise, and experience, and no one institution has the human and financial capital required. The challenges girls and women face are no exception. Any sustainable, truly impactful effort to […]
Taking Risks to Break New Ground in Botswana
I was born with an entrepreneurial spirit. It all began when I started plaiting the hair of women in my community as a girl, including teachers at my school for a small fee. I would take the income home to help my family. I grew up in Botswana, in a small old town with my […]
This is What Development Looks Like
This week the Daily Mail created a stir by reporting that t-shirts produced for the Fawcett Society by Whistles, and modelled by British political leaders, had been made in ‘Sweatshop conditions’ in Mauritius. The pictures which accompany the article show what looks like a well equipped, purpose built factory. The workflow is organised, the garments […]
TRUST WOMEN
Unleashing Women-led Enterprise
Photo: CDC Back in 2005, Kofi Annan argued that gender equality is the bedrock for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A decade later, the case for women’s economic empowerment is even more compelling. Equality of employment opportunities means reduced poverty and higher GDP levels; more women in the workforce leads to productivity gains; women are […]
Women's Power in Agriculture
A salesgirl dressed as a cowgirl waits for clients in a cattle showroom in Depok, West Java province, Indonesia, Oct. 18, 2012. REUTERS/Enny Nuraheni When it comes to women’s economic empowerment, we tend to hear only about the two ends of the spectrum: high-flying women who’ve made it to the top in the macho world […]
Women’s Power in Agriculture
A salesgirl dressed as a cowgirl waits for clients in a cattle showroom in Depok, West Java province, Indonesia, Oct. 18, 2012. REUTERS/Enny Nuraheni When it comes to women’s economic empowerment, we tend to hear only about the two ends of the spectrum: high-flying women who’ve made it to the top in the macho world […]
Women’s and Children’s Health and the SDGs
By Next year, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) will be replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) — a set of even more ambitious targets for global development. In a bold attempt to create the healthiest generation of young women and children in the world, the new SDGs will require the near elimination of preventable […]
Running the Numbers, and Having a Transformative Impact
Children attending school in the elements of Africa without shelter, electricity or modern teaching tools Over the last 30 years I have found it useful to constantly and obsessively “Run the Numbers” when I look at any business opportunity. I try to do this in a way that quickly strikes to the heart of any […]
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 […]
Real Change: How Mobile Tech is Transforming Africa
For years analysts have said that “Africa is Rising,” but now it’s really happening. With an expanding population and steady economic growth, social enterprise in Africa is today seeing real returns on investment. This “double-bottom line” success — financial plus humanitarian gains — is drawing new attention to Africa to not only advance, but also […]
Voices from the South and the Post-2015 Agenda
The second Bridging the Gap for African Women in business conference was held in Kampala Uganda on 6 March 2014. The conference was part of this year’s International Women’s Day celebrations organized by the charity Let Them Help Themselves Out of Poverty and aimed to engage African Women in Business in a conversation on the […]
Moving Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility
In 2009, in the middle of the economic crisis, Danone CEO Franck Riboud made the following statement: “It is a common sense observation that no living organism can grow and develop in a deprived environment or a desert. It is in a company’s best interests to take good care of its economic and social environment, […]
The Ripple Effects of Investing in Women
On International Women’s Day, people around the world celebrate women’s achievements. In my home country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), there has never been a more important time to highlight the progress that is being made and the important link between investing in women and strengthening community and economic development. In 2012, I participated in […]