Bridging the Gap between Young People’s Career Aspirations & Ability to Succeed
Young people today make up the largest youth population in history. Their successes and struggles are as diverse as their personalities and aspirations. However, in all corners of the globe, this generation faces a common challenge: persistent, high rates of youth unemployment. Left unaddressed, the consequences reverberate across our cities and affect us all. When […]
SABMiller/ AB InBev’s Local Sourcing in Africa
SABMiller plc, which combined with AB InBev in October 2016, has been a pioneer in promoting local sourcing in Africa. Many of the company’s subsidiaries in Africa have created new brands and brewing processes which incorporate locally grown crops such as sorghum and cassava. This is based on a win-win-win model where: Local businesses can […]
Sri Lanka’s Garment Workers ‘Stand Up’ for Rights
Shirone Kaushalya works in a factory producing leather jackets. But she rarely sees the finished product. The 30-year-old woman uses a hammer to pound on the ridges and bumps of raw leather until it is smooth enough for stitching. Then she hands the flattened material to the next station in production and grabs another piece […]
Finding Better Ways to Prepare for Future Health Threats
Ebola, Zika, SARS and the return of avian flu to the headlines this week are reminders that the threat of a new epidemic is never far away. With increased air travel and populations on the move, it doesn’t take long for a virus to spread between countries and jump across continents, with potentially catastrophic results. […]
New Evidence Supporting the Business Case for Investing in Female Garment Workers
CARE’s programmes on dignified work have for a number of years included training sessions for women in factories. Recent research provides further evidence, backing up our own findings, that investing in training for women workers makes good business sense for factory owners. A key initiative that we have been involved in implementing has been the […]
Sustainable Business Leadership in 2017: Game On
At the start of last year, we were still riding the highs of 2015, which saw important progress on sustainable business. The year just past, 2016, for multiple reasons, was less positive. How will 2017 break the tie? Let’s start by looking back to where we were a year ago. Here’s the good news: The […]
Making DFID’s Economic Development Strategy Work for Women
CARE firmly believes that inclusive economic development is at the core of eliminating extreme poverty and injustice. So we welcome DFID’s focus on this agenda and their long-awaited strategy, published this week. What we are most concerned about now, though, is how it will deliver for the world’s poorest women. We should be cautious about […]
These 5 Innovations Will Transform the Lives of Smallholder Farmers
This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017. From artificial intelligence, to precision agriculture, to the internet of things, emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way food is consumed, handled and produced. But which technologies could most powerfully transform the lives of smallholder farmers? These, after all, are the […]
Three Learnings for the Global Noncommunicable Diseases Fight
Working in global development, it’s impossible to avoid seeing the heavy personal and societal tolls being wrought by cancer, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, heart disease, and mental health. These noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for three out of every five deaths across the world. The impact is even greater in developing countries, where limited resources and […]
What prize awaits Businesses that Embrace the Sustainable Development Goals?
By Sue Adkins, International Director, Business in the Community As the Business Sustainable Development Commission launches its report Better Business, Better World as the World Economic Forum in Davos, marking the first anniversary of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sue Adkins, International Director at BITC looks at how businesses are embracing the SDGs. The […]
Seeing Evidence of Company Action on Modern Slavery
Initiative ETI is recommending that companies place their Modern Slavery Statements in the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s Central Registry for Modern Slavery Statements arguing that it provides the only independent, credible, free, open and accessible repository that is accountable to the public interest. In this important blog, Cindy Berman explains why. Go to […]
‘We the People’ for Social and Economic Sustainability
The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union are undergoing dramatic social, economic and cultural change in a volatile political environment. Donald Trump’s victory was the outcome of years of disturbing world events, a turbulent financial system, and economic stagnation in the U.S. In the wake of the election, the political system being scrutinized, […]
Leveraging the SDGs to Grow Markets and Drive Development
By Natalie Africa, Senior Director, Private Sector Engagement, Every Woman Every Child, United Nations Foundation On January 16th the Business and Sustainable Development Commission launched its groundbreaking report on global development entitled Better Business, Business World. A year in the making, the report outlines the business case for sustainable development, demonstrates the enormous economic and […]
Delivering the SDGs through Ethical Trade
ETI’s newest guide on ethical trade and the SDGs shows how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are relevant to ethical trade and workers’ rights, particularly SDG8 on decent work and sustainable development, as well as other key goals. It also sets out the relationship between the SDGs, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human […]
Why Business and Social Protection are Not Contradictory but “Two Sides of the Same Coin”
Longstanding (mis-)perception of the distinctiveness of business ambitions and Social Protection (SP) goals has inhibited identification of joint opportunities to leverage synergies for effectively addressing needs with market based solutions. This discussion is increasingly relevant for protracted (often chronic displacement) crises caused by conflict or weather induced disasters that create and exacerbate existing vulnerabilities among […]
Four Ways Business Can Support Lasting Change in Youth Unemployment
Youth unemployment in the face of the growing youth population bulge is a problem on a massive scale. Raleigh International works in rural areas of countries where the problem is particularly severe. Without a doubt, this is one area where business has a critical role to play. We can only be successful through meaningful partnerships, […]
The Year Ahead and the Need to Rethink Collaboration
2016 convinced me of the need to collaborate more deeply than ever: to deliver on the bold future envisioned in the new Sustainable Development Goals; to protect past progress made towards equality—now threatened by the politics of division; to tackle the deep social exclusion that has at least in part driven the political turbulence of […]
Top 10 Discussions of 2016
2016 saw our 100th online discussion, with over 1,300 comments posted over the course of the year! Online discussions have played a central role in our new Challenges as a way for members to share insights on the Challenge question. From next year, we will be upgrading our discussion forum to make it easier to […]
Empowering Today’s Women for the Women of Tomorrow
Interview with Johanna Ryan, Social Performance Director, VisionFund International Johanna Ryan will be speaking at a dinner hosted by Women Advancing Microfinance UK on Tuesday 31st January 2017 in London. She will talk to us about the work VisionFund International does and the impact it’s having on the lives of women. Tickets to the event […]
Public-Private Partnerships Critical to Fighting AIDS
Interview with Dr. Huma Abbasi, General Manager, Global Health and Medical, Chevron, and Mark Viso, President and CEO, Pact December 1, 2016 marked the 28th World AIDS Day – observed to commemorate those who have struggled with the disease and those who continue to fight against it. Despite huge advances toward ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, […]