Training and Support for Women Refugees
Interview with Mandana Hendessi, Iraq Country Director at Women for Women International Mandana Hendessi will be speaking at a dinner hosted by Women Advancing Microfinance UK on Tuesday 2nd May 2017 in London. She will be talking about the work that Women for Women International (WfWi) and its partners are doing in and around refugee […]
Bridging the Gender Gap in the African Startup Ecosystem
The startup ecosystem in Africa is growing from strength to strength. Innovative entrepreneurs across the continent are leveraging technology to turn the challenges they see around them into opportunities. While a few years ago Africa was probably not on their radar, international tech investors are now beginning to pay attention and according to Disrupt Africa, […]
Creating Transparency Around Corporate Sustainability Tools
There are hundreds of tools out there that can help companies learn, manage or report about their impacts on sustainable development in general and the Sustainable Development Goals in particular. An international consortium of researchers, NGOs and rating agencies has now collected and categorized 226 tools – all claiming to help measure and manage corporate […]
Why Women Workers and Managers Prefer Electronic Wage Payments in Bangladesh
Payday can be an ordeal for women garment workers in Bangladesh. Often, they must wait in long lines, carry wads of cash through crowded streets, or encounter a mother-in-law demanding money. Garment factories account for a huge slice of Bangladesh’s economy and employ more than three million women. Most are paid in cash. That’s bad […]
One for All, and All for One: Industry-Level Collaboration is Needed to Eradicate Forced Labour
According to the ILO, nearly 21 million people are subjected to forced labour around the world (an alternative estimate from the Walk Free Foundation, which is working with the ILO to release updated figures this year, puts the number more than twice as high). This activity generates $150 billion in illegal profits every year. 71% […]
How Business Can Help Address Youth Employability
Barclays is a transatlantic bank with a history of supporting young people to gain skills for employability. Between 2012 and 2015, we delivered skills training to over 5.7 million disadvantaged young people and in 2016 we helped a further 1.7m people gain employability skills. During this time, we have increasingly focused on measuring and understanding […]
Improving Services in Low Income Markets
For businesses selling products and services at the base of the pyramid, understanding low-income consumers and the choices they make is critical to meeting customer needs, boosting sales, and delivering real value. Inclusive business Dr. Consulta run a network of medical centres that provide primary and secondary care in São Paulo, Brazil. With over 85,000 […]
Bridging Gaps: Cross-sector Collaboration is the Future of Sustainable Business
The world faces growing problems—natural resource scarcity and climate change, along with anti-trade and migration movements—that require more nimble policies, institutions and investments for sustainable development. Yet, current approaches are hobbled because they operate in silos across sectors. When stakeholders and policymakers operate in silos, maximizing one interest at the expense of everyone else’s, the […]
Corporate Leaders, Don’t Miss the Social Impact Wave!
For a big company, innovating is anticipating. It involves being able to spot weak signals, new ideas and models that will disrupt tomorrow’s markets. In only 10 years, changes in digital technology have deeply disrupted the rules of economic competition. In a faster and more interconnected world, companies that have been able to anticipate the […]
Inclusive Distribution: The Secret to Securing a Route-to-Market
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are well aware that emerging and developing markets represent their greatest growth opportunity. 90 percent of Unilever’s global growth and Procter & Gamble’s only growth came from emerging markets during 2008-2014. Yet, with the majority of population growth over the next 35 years expected to be in today’s developing countries, […]
Blockchain Will Bring Empowerment And Transparency To Development
The open source, decentralised database blockchain allows donors, aid agencies, NGOs and beneficiaries to operate transparent, agile and open networks. Software is eating the world. And it is also gaining more and more importance and changing processes in development. Access to smartphones is increasing fast. And as we are seeing the first fruitful outcomes stemming […]
Solving Bangladesh’s Skills Shortage Through Apprenticeships
BRAC Case study on Youth Employability Bangladesh has undergone an enormous transformation over the past forty years and has long been seen as an example of how aid can support progressive, pro-poor and country driven development. But a major issue has been holding the country back; young people and businesses in Bangladesh are facing a […]
Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment in DRC
Historically there’s been limited evidence on what works to genuinely economically empower women in DRC’s agricultural sectors. But, thanks to ÉLAN RDC’s WEE Learning Series, that’s now starting to change. Women and working-aged adolescent girls in DRC are some of the most marginalised in the world. Disproportionately high rates of poverty, inadequate access to basic […]
HERproject at 10 – Celebrating HERsuccess, Inspiring HERfuture
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day 2017—a good time to take stock of our collective progress toward gender equality. And such a moment of reflection is particularly relevant for HERproject this year, as we are hitting a big milestone: It’s our 10th birthday! On our anniversary, we’re taking a moment to think about what […]
Girls’ Economic Empowerment – Why Context Matters for Financial Education
Last year I wrote about why it makes sense for corporates to invest in girls’ education and introduced Credit Suisse’s Financial Education for Girls program that aims to improve the financial knowledge and life skills of approximately 100,000 girls. At the time, the program had been implemented for only 18 months. This year we are […]
#BeBoldForChange: To Empower Women, You Need to Work with Men, Too
On International Women’s Day, Alison Ward explains how Cotton Connect’s work with Primark to support women cotton farmers in India is sowing transformative change by engaging both sexes. #BeBoldForChange is the theme for International Women’s Day 2017. While progress has been made around the world, the latest estimates from the World Economic Forum reveal that […]
Co-Creating Partnerships to Achieve the Global Goals
With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) having significantly raised the bar regarding ambition and universality, there is agreement that we have to go well beyond business as usual. Achieving breakthrough progress in these rapidly-changing times requires a new mind-set and different behavior from all of us. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not […]
Educating Girls – From Marginalized to Empowered
Pearson Case Study on Youth Employability Pearson and international NGO Camfed have announced an expansion of their existing partnership aimed at educating and empowering girls from low-income communities in Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Their work is being extended in Tanzania to support 6,400 more children in 80 schools. It is being led by young educated women, […]
Invisible Lives: Understanding Youth Livelihoods in Ghana and Uganda
Beatrice had a busy day. It’s tomato season, which means she had to wake up extra early to go to the garden to harvest some ripe tomatoes. On her way, she made sure to feed the poultry and check on the goats. It’s also market day in her village, so after feeding her children and […]
Syngenta’s Grow More Model to Increase Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa
nd Samantha Krause, Strategic Initiatives Director, TechnoServe Smallholder farmers across Africa present the largest opportunity and challenge to Syngenta’s business. Limited knowledge of agronomy, cash constraints and very low confidence in produce markets trap farmers in low yield and low income cycles. Translated into numbers, it means that smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa produce around 25% […]