Gender Equality Depends on Business Becoming Co-Responsible for Care Work
A new Business Fights Poverty report illustrates that opportunities exist across the value chain for business to play a key role in supporting social innovation in this area and become co-responsible care actors. What is care? The global economic system is underpinned by many thousands of hours of “invisible” care work that is often unpaid, underpaid […]
10 Businesses Making the SDGs their Business
Some of the best ideas and boldest actions are coming from entrepreneurs and start-ups embedded in low-income communities. These disruptors are driving innovations that are tackling environmental challenges, improving people’s health and building inclusive economies. Investing and learning from them is one of the best ways to accelerate sustainable development. This is the purpose of […]
Five Reasons Why Businesses Should Prioritise Supporting Women in Global Garment Supply Chains
As governments, businesses, civil society and NGOs take stock of global progress towards to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is important to recognize that investing in women in global garment supply chains can act as a lever to achieving the SDGs. RISE: Reimagining Industry to Support Equality is an initiative to support collaborative industry […]
Empowering Women in Cotton Farming: Building Resilience Amid Climate Change Challenges
In cotton, women play a significant role in building sustainable, productive and resilient farms. From planting seeds to nurturing and harvesting crops, women are at the beating heart of smallholder farming that is the source of much high-quality raw material supplied to global retail buyers and made into the cotton clothes we love to buy […]
Catalysing Investment in the Health of Women, Children, and Adolescents
Global progress to reduce preventable deaths of pregnant women, mothers and babies has flatlined for the last eight years, according to the WHO. It is high time to recognise that investing in the health of women, children and adolescents is not only a moral imperative and a human rights requirement; it’s an essential investment in […]
Weathering COVID-19: Small and Micro Businesses in Pakistan
The COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a wave of disruption, leaving no corner untouched. While the world focused on the health crisis, a quieter battle unfolded on the streets of Pakistan. Small and micro enterprises, the lifeblood of the nation’s economy, faced an unprecedented challenge. As we delve into the depths of their struggles, it becomes evident […]
Eco-Green Teens Project: Empowering Nigerian Youth for Sustainable Agriculture
The Covid-19 pandemic had a socio-economic impact on the Nigerian economy, which led to increased food prices making basic staple foods (maize, cowpea, green leafy vegetable etc.) difficult to access for both low and middle-income classes [1]. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also predicted that over 19 million Nigerians would face food insecurity in […]
Why Doesn’t the Private Sector Talk More About Socio-Economic Inequality?
The private sector has a responsibility – and, in the long term, arguably a commercial imperative – to tackle inequalities through the levers that it can pull directly: improving pay and working conditions, tackling inequalities in recruitment and promotion, encouraging workers to unionise, ensuring that their products and services are produced and priced fairly, and […]
What Loss and Damage Means for Human Rights and Your Business
Skyrocketing prices and empty shelves have made headlines again this year and a standout factor is the escalating impact of climate change. This is bad for businesses and customers, but worst for the world’s poorest communities who produce food and goods for the local and global economy. One key issue is ‘Loss and Damage’: the […]
The Unprecedented Potential of Africa’s Future Generations
“The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.” Spoken by Nelson Mandela, these words ring true, eluding time and geopolitical context. For Africa, they resonate today more than ever before because of our historic boom in the population of young people. This International Day of the African Child, June 16, is arguably the most […]
5 Insights on Generative AI, Social Impact and the Role of Business
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is triggering transformations that were hard to envisage even a year ago, with some predicting it could be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. Generative AI, which includes systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing Chat, Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude, can generate new content or predictions based on vast amounts […]
Closing the Mobile Gender Gap Will Have Significant Benefits for Women, their Communities and Economies
In LMICs, mobile phones are the primary and often only way people get online, especially women. More than 3.4 billion people in LMICs now access the internet on a mobile phone, but significant gender gaps remain. Our GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023 highlights that while more women across LMICs are using mobile internet than ever […]
Plastic Waste is Hurting Women in Developing Countries – but there are ways to stop it
If we are to build a greener, fairer and more equal society in the wake of COVID-19, it’s time for rich countries to end their practice of dumping plastic waste in developing countries. This not only harms the environment but disproportionately affects the women and girls who tend to clear it up. The problem was […]
Parents in the Workplace: Help Co-Create a New Tool for Employers
Employers rely on parents for a thriving workforce. Over 70% of all mothers with children under 18 in the US[i] and UK[ii] work. That number rises to over 90% of all fathers. Today’s workforce is made up of more people with dependent children than those without them. But most employers don’t do enough to support them—and mothers […]
Time to Act: 3 Ways the Business Community Can Take Action to Help Improve Youth Mental Health
A call to action by members of the, UNICEF led, Global Coalition for Youth Mental Health The mental health of young people globally was a major concern before COVID-19. Now, with the pandemic having exacerbated many mental health issues, it can no longer be ignored. For all countries, it is past the time to prioritize […]
How Can the Private Sector Tackle Inequality and Generate Shared Prosperity for All?
Listen to this article (audio generated using AI assistance): The high level and structural nature of inequality in our world is a systemic risk that poses an existential threat to our society and economy. It is eroding trust in our political and economic systems, constraining growth, contributing to polarization and unrest, and undermining our ability […]
Understanding Local Markets Can Create Green Jobs and Improved Livelihoods in African Cities
Understanding Local Markets Can Create Green Jobs and Improved Livelihoods in African Cities Halima Awol, a 30-year-old mother of two, is a hard worker and does everything she can to provide for her family. However, despite her best efforts and strong work ethic, the most she was able to earn was 2,800 Ethiopian birr–barely more […]
Tackling Digital and Financial Exclusion: Women Vendors Raising Themselves Out of Poverty with Social Media Marketing
In 2020 Hand in Hand began an innovative project with Visa Inc., providing advanced business and digital training to 1,280 female microbusiness owners living in Nairobi’s informal settlements, described by the UN as “some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world.” But, just months after the project began, Kenya was hit […]
Gender Empowerment: How Carbon Finance & Investing in Climate Solutions Drives Positive Impact
Increasingly people realise that climate and CO2 emissions cannot be considered in isolation – a changing climate impacts biodiversity and the ecosystem services we rely on. But it also has an outsize impact on women and girls, particularly those in developing countries where there is a higher reliance on natural resources for livelihood and survival. […]
New Research Reveals Women Entrepreneurs are Facing Enormous Challenges: The Private Sector Must Take Action to Close the Gender Gap
Women entrepreneurs are battling multiple challenges As economic, political, social and humanitarian crises continue to rock the world many women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries are left grappling with the devastating impacts. Existing gender inequalities were intensified and further entrenched in societies as a knock-on effect of COVID-19 and the cost of living […]