Working Together to Enhance the Effectiveness of Musicking in Peacebuilding Activities
Introduction Do you like music? What kind of music do you like? Have you ever wondered how much musical energy is produced on the planet at any given moment? Hundreds of millions of people are participating in musical events today, singing, playing, performing, dancing, clapping hands, stomping feet, listening with headphones while reading or walking […]
Professionalising African Motorcycle Taxis: From Vitamins to Painkillers
SafeMotos is proud to announce the new version of our smartphone application: what we believe to be the most localized piece of software ever built by an African startup. It’s been a rocky journey though, with many missteps along the way. Our hope is that we can pass on some of the lessons learned at SafeMotos so others […]
Advocating Together for the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights
Long gone are the days when companies and NGOS could barely talk to each other. NGO-private sector partnerships are now the order of the day, and governments increasingly hope that companies will help in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from poverty reduction to climate change. But joint advocacy between companies and NGOs is still […]
The Business Case for a Gender Audit
An increasing number of businesses have committed to create more diverse, gender-balanced, inclusive workplaces – recognizing that it is not only the right thing to do, but also makes business sense. This recognition of the value of gender equality is progress in itself – but pursuing change in this area is not simple, particularly for […]
Sweet Dreams Coming True For Syrian Refugees
“Syrians are famous for their sweets,” says Mohamed Said. He and his son-in-law, Emad Mahmoud, are Syrian refugees living in Darashakran Camp, near the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. They make a living selling handmade cakes and baklava – a pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with honey. Said and Mahmoud run Sima’s Sweets, one of […]
Meet the Longlist: Unilever Global Development Award, Supported by Business Fights Poverty
For the fifth year in a row, Business Fights Poverty is partnering with Unilever and Business in the Community on an award that recognises businesses that demonstrate positive impact against one or more of the SDGs Business has a key role to play in helping drive progress on ending poverty and protecting the planet. More […]
From Gender Lens to Inclusive Impact Investment
Defining impact by destination… A significant component of impact investment’s raisson d’etre is the promotion of economic development. But not just any investment qualifies as impact investment by contributing to economic development- an oil rig or a tobacco company can catalyze demonstrable GDP growth and job creation but are rarely classified as impact investments. […]
Formal Finance and Informal Groups: Inside the Black Box
A successful business case for linkages must offer something useful to all involved parties. This means looking ‘inside the black box’ of different mindsets: the bank or microfinance institution (MFI) interested in mobilizing money; the fintech or platform provider interested in moving money; and last but not least, the informal groups and the people using […]
Why We Must Go Beyond Economics In The Discourse on Empowerment of Women
Last week, Ivanka Trump attended the Summit of the Americas in Peru and announced a new women’s economic empowerment initiative. This builds on the Women’s Entrepreneurial Finance Initiative, or We-Fi, she launched last year, which aims to encourage private investment and funding to women-owned companies and is backed by the World Bank. Are these kinds of initiatives enough to transform the […]
Five Years after Rana Plaza, We Still Must Do More to Empower Women Workers in Bangladesh
Five years ago, a building housing a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 people. The deadliest structural failure in modern human history, the Rana Plaza tragedy turned the eyes of the world to Bangladesh and sparked a conversation about compliance and building safety. Since then, brands and the development community have come to […]
Helping Refugees Move From Crisis To Resilience and Self-Reliance
It is estimated that, on average, a refugee spends over a decade in exile. This means that many refugee children, who make up more than half the world’s refugees, will spend most of their childhood in exile, jeopardizing their education and access to future economic opportunities. For millions of refugee adults, decades of displacement have […]
Mapping Lives with Refugees
Do you decide to try and reach Europe by any means necessary? So begins the Guardian’s online interactive, “The Refugee Challenge.” You play as a widowed mother of two who must escape the airstrikes in Syria and make your way to Europe, where you can attain asylum. While the victories and setbacks you encounter mimic choose-your-own-adventure novels, the […]
Charting a Course for Robust Private Sector Engagement
Since its inception, MCC has sought to engage the private sector as a key part of its mission of “Reducing Poverty Through Economic Growth.” Now in its 14th year, the agency has a strong foundation of experience and best practices gleaned from working with the business community to build upon. Yet how to best draw […]
The Impact of a Microfinance on Preventing Intimate Partner Violence
Indashyikirwa, meaning ‘agents for change’, is a program that seeks to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) across Rwanda, and is being implemented by CARE Rwanda, Rwanda Women’s Network (RWN) and Rwanda Men’s Resource Center (RWAMREC). One component of the program was a 5-month weekly curriculum with 840 heterosexual couples recruited from CARE’s micro-finance village savings […]
Making Payment Acceptance a Driver for Financial Inclusion
Ten years ago, 85 percent of the world’s transactions were in cash and checks, and 2.5 billion people were unbanked. Since then, we’ve all been working hard as an industry to develop technology that will give the unbanked access to the world of digital payments. Mastercard has connected more than 360 million people to formal […]
Sustainability Standards Embrace GIS Technology
The exponential growth in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for sustainability is not surprising. It is a technology that becomes more powerful the more people use it, and it offers the sustainability community a straightforward and universal platform to come together and build on each other’s work. GIS is not new to sustainability […]
Virtual Exchange: Students Collaborate to Tackle Social Enterprise Challenges in the Middle East
“I’ve never worked with people from so far away. M²GATE gave me the opportunity to work with people from another culture. I enjoyed it a lot,” said Ryan Berg, a freshman at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan at the final session of Cohort 1 of the M²GATE program. M²GATE is […]
Are Standards an Effective Tool to Help Improve Production Practices Across Sectors?
As businesses increasingly strengthen their sustainability policies in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many are deepening their sustainability commitments. We know from an AidEnvironment review published last year that upstream and downstream businesses benefit in many different ways from working with sustainability standards, for example, 98% of studies reviewed show improvements in sales and […]
4 Tips for Effective and Dynamic Groups
Call them networks, working groups or knowledge hubs, communities of practice have been flourishing in the international development sector for some time now. Whether you want to influence decision makers, share best practices or connect with professionals within or beyond the sector, communities can help you strengthen your organisation’s outreach and knowledge. And today, thanks […]
5 Ways Local Markets Help Refugees Rebuild Their Lives
For four years, Uganda’s neighbour, South Sudan, has been at war with itself. This has resulted in two million people having had to flee their country, including one million to Uganda. 80 per cent of these are women and children. They are families who have lost loved ones, their homes, their land and their livelihoods, […]