For Women in India Small Loans Have a Big Impact
In Harhua, India, a sleepy village on the outskirts of the ancient city of Varanasi, Irawati Devi stands proudly under the bael tree that shades her home. Goats scour the ground around her mint-green food carts, searching for traces of the fried noodles and samosas she sells. “When we first moved to Harhua,” Irawati, 58, […]
NEW REPORTS: Intrapreneurship, Partnerships, Refugees and Education
Business Fights Poverty continues, as it has done over the past decade, to be the network for the private sector and its partners to unlock new opportunities for social impact. This work continues at pace and over the past month, not only did we host our annual UN General Assembly side event with 200 professionals […]
What More Should Supermarkets do to Respect Workers’ Rights in their Supply Chain?
Oxfam’s Ripe for Change report highlights hunger and suffering amongst the people who grow and process our food. Across a basket of 12 common food products, we present evidence of in-work poverty and a deep disempowerment, especially among women workers. As well as this, we show the decline in the share of the consumer price going to […]
How Businesses Can Do Better for Girls
If you’re like me, and have spent the last decade working in international development, then you have heard it all before; repeatedly, consistently, with exclamation marks: “When you empower girls, you empower the whole nation!” “Investing in girls is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do!” “Investing in girls […]
17 Business Models to Build Refugee Resilience
Turning a crisis into an opportunity is a bold idea. But, difficult to do in practice. This week world leaders have gathered in New York where they are expected to agree on a landmark commitment to strengthen the international refugee response under the Global Compact on Refugees. A commitment that hinges on the ability to […]
Businesses and Sustainability Standards Empowering Women in Supply Chains
Achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is the focus of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, but it is also integral to achieving all of the SDGs. Without doubt, companies and sustainability standards have an important role to play in achieving the goals and driving systemic improvement for women working in factories and […]
Partnerships Cultivate Change in the Niger Delta
Economic development is inherently unstable, and the ebbs and flows of progress can be unsettling. This is true in the Niger Delta, which contains one of the world’s largest supplies of oil and an abundance of other commodities like catfish, cocoa and palm oil. Yet, 70 percent of its 30 million people live in poverty […]
From the Ground Up: How Soil-testing Can Help Predict Return-on-investment for African Farmers
One of the principal challenges for Africa’s agricultural sector, and the smallholder farmers who make up the vast majority of its workforce, is low yields. According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, average maize yields in Kenya are about half those of India; one-third those of Mexico; and less than one-sixth […]
8 SSIR Articles on Businesses Pursuing a Social Mission
Consumers increasingly expect businesses to look out for not only their shareholders, but also society at large. They want to see their values reflected in the products and services they use, and prefer brands that invest in meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers. Companies that take time to listen and respond to these consumer demands […]
Cultural Forces, Business and Peace: An Overview
It is true that governments sign treaties with one another or with groups within their jurisdiction to stop violence. A signal feature of government is control over weapons just as a responsibility of government is the security of its people. Determining when to use those weapons and when to stop and for what reasons is […]
CARE Examine the Importance of Gender Equity in Business
Gender equality is high on the corporate agenda, from sales of feminist merchandise, to gender pay gap reporting, to celebrities and politicians forming coalitions; confronting institutional norms and behaviour. It feels like we are in a moment in history where putting gender equity firmly on the table and creating positive change could make lasting equality. […]
What is a Refugee-Inclusive Business?
We stand #WithRefugees today on World Refugee Day and every other day of the year. A few weeks ago, the International Finance Corporation published a study revealing that the Kakuma refugee camp and surrounding neighborhoods in northern Kenya, one of the largest and long-standing refugee settlements, represents a US$56 million market opportunity. This is eye-opening […]
How Can We Engage SMEs Exporting to Frontier Markets With the Case for Doing Business With Integrity?
Bribery and corruption are major barriers to global trade and investment. 43% of compliance officers of UK firms indicated that they had decided not to do business in a country due to the perceived risk of corruption. And at the firm level, the evidence shows that the disadvantages of bribery outweigh the benefits over the […]
Music, Business and Peace: An Overview
Welcome to an ongoing discussion about topics specifically devoted to the relationship among music, business and peace, which will be featured in Business Fights Poverty for the months of June, July, and September. This conversation has been the aim of two conferences on “Music, Business, and Peace” at Indiana University led by scholars at the […]
Interview with Alexander Bernstein: Leonard Bernstein’s Revolution
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein’s role as a larger-than–life figure is well-documented, especially in this year of celebration for the one hundred-year anniversary of his birth. Questions remain as to what one can learn from his music, […]
Interview with Jerry White, CEO of Global Impact Strategies, Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia
Jerry is the CEO of Global Impact Strategies, Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia, and co-chair of Global Covenant Partners. Jerry is known for leading high-impact campaigns including the historic International Campaign to Ban Landmines which was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1997. He also co-founded Survivor Corps, formerly […]
Connecting Music to Ethics
Many features of music contribute to its positive potential for promoting social harmony. But music’s influence on human interaction is not entirely benign. I consider features of music that enable it to serve such contrary projects. I begin by itemizing some of the mechanisms through which music creates feeling of solidarity among people. Among them […]
From Settler Colonialism to Standing Rock: Hearing Native Voices for Peace
The water protectors of the Standing Rock Sioux captured public attention with their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Their actions are only the most recent in a long history of indigenous protests of resource extraction and treaty violations on Native American land. Often these struggles have involved indigenous music and Standing Rock was no exception. An […]
Empathy: A Global Imperative for Peace
This essay maintains that interplays between empathy, goodwill and other-regarding behaviors can make a huge difference in arguing one type of community into existence (one based on inclusivity, peace, respect, and universal human values) as opposed to arguing another kind of community into existence (one based on turmoil, meanness, wretchedness, genocide, and heaps of trouble). […]
How Music May Serve as a Nudge for More Ethical and Peaceful Business Behavior
Olivier Urbain’s presence in the special issue features as part of the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on Business, Music and Peace, and in the conferences that we held on topic is inspiring and validating. To have someone of Urbain’s stature willing to take time, not only for an appearance for a conference, but to engage […]