Addressing the Sanitation Crisis One Toilet at a Time
It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without a clean and safe toilet, but this is the reality for 1 in 3 people globally. World Toilet Day, celebrated annually on 19th November, has been a UN recognised day since 2013. It was set up to raise awareness of the health, emotional and psychological […]
Collective Business Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality
“If you want to go far, go together,” said Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile phone operator, known for the incredibly successful M-PESA payments platform which has transformed the way money changes hands in Kenya. This time Collymore was making news during the recent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit at the United Nations […]
Radical Partnerships to Give Newborns a Healthier Start
The first month of life can be dangerous. In 2013, almost three million babies worldwide lost their lives during those initial four weeks – a quarter due to infection. Many of these deaths could be prevented if the appropriate healthcare was within reach at the right time, in the right place. Newborn babies, wherever they […]
How Successful Partnerships Will Fuel Agenda 2030
(SHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images) By Fiona Koch, Communications Manager, Ashoka Ireland All eyes were on New York last week as the UN launched its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); a new package of economic, social and environmental objectives designed to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With 17 overarching aims broken down into 169 targets, the […]
Turbo Charging Development: Making the SDGs a Reality
By Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever and Mark Gunton, CEO, Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership In New York last week global leaders adopted a set of ambitious goals and targets to set the world on a new course. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have committed us to eradicating extreme poverty, fighting injustice and inequality, and taking urgent […]
Hygiene as a Frontier for Good Health
It seems we are often on the brink of something historic or being given the opportunity of a lifetime but in the case of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in New York this weekend it may actually be true. If the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are fully implemented by their deadline of 2030 […]
A Seat at the Table: Pharmaceuticals and the SDGs
By Mario Ottiglio, Director of Public Affairs, Communications & Global Health Policy at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) After more than two years of intense negotiations, the United Nations’ 193 member states have unanimously agreed on a new Sustainable Development Agenda with 17 goals. Together with the UN Post 2020 Climate […]
Hidden Hunger is a Global Killer
As we celebrate the achievements under the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals and look to accelerate progress with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, a silent epidemic is afflicting more than a quarter of humanity — 2 billion people — around the world. It accounts for 11 percent of the global burden of disease. This epidemic disproportionately […]
Reflections on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
Health Programs at Eli Lilly At the UN General Assembly in New York this month, countries will adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide efforts to end poverty and improve lives over the next 15 years. There’s a lot of excitement and buzz around the proposed SDGs—and not just among those involved with global […]
Health System Innovations that Save Children’s Lives
What does ‘health system strengthening’ really mean? It is an aspiration we hear a lot. But what does it really take to make sure countries have the right resources in the right places to help people get the right health care when they need it – without falling into financial hardship as a result? At […]
Making Hunger History
Hunger has plagued humanity since the dawn of recorded history. It has featured in every era and every civilization. It has brought empires to ruin, and societies to their knees. In this second decade of the 21st century, we have the expertise, the technology, and the resources to feed every person, in every country. Yet […]
Innovations in Maternal and Newborn Healthcare
In a recent breakfast meeting held in Kenya by the Innovation Challenge Fund for the private sector, the technical partner of the Fund, Population Council, revealed a startling fact: Up to 287,000 women die around the globe each year during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period – largely due to access to skilled routine and […]
Bridging the Health Systems Gap in Nigeria
“I regard universal health coverage as the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer. It is inclusive. It unifies services and delivers them in a comprehensive and integrated way, based on primary health care.” — Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO) Nigeria’s health care system is weak, ranking a dismal […]
New Approaches to a Global Water Challenge
By Sue Adkins, International Director, Business in the Community PepsiCo works with partners to provide under-served communities with access to clean, safe water, and advocates for new approaches to global water challenges. Social impacts PepsiCo’s partnerships provided safe water access to more than 5.6 million people in developing communities worldwide. The partnerships produced innovative, replicable […]
Development Partnership for Edible Oil Fortification
BASF, in partnership with BioAnalyt, helped to reduce vitamin and mineral deficiencies in people at risk in over 40 developing countries. Social impacts Over 114 million people at risk of vitamin A deficiency were reached with vitamin A fortified oil. The development of two easy-to-use vitamin A test kits allowed successful national food fortification programmes. […]
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods
SOIL provides affordable, ecologically sustainable household sanitation services to Haiti’s most impoverished urban neighbourhoods. Social impacts SOIL provided 2,220 people in Haiti with a safe place to use the toilet, reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases such as cholera. The compost created as a by-product supported ecological restoration and agricultural livelihoods, improving food security. The […]
Essential Insurance Coverage for HIV+ Community
The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty, Finalist, 2015 AllLife, a South African provider of insurance to people with HIV, has pioneered an approach that proves it is possible to insure the “uninsurable”, and to do so in a financially and socially sustainable way. Social impacts AllLife improved the health and mortality […]
NGOs Scaling Social Impact Through Business Ideas
Listen to the recording of the discussion with Erik Simanis, Head of the Frontier Markets Initiative at Cornell University, and Anna Gerrard, Technical Advisor: market-based and private sector programmes at Sightsavers, about why and how NGOs are exploring the use of business models to scale their social impact.
Three Ways to Strengthen Healthcare Systems
The Ebola outbreak exposed what we have all known for many years – healthcare systems in the poorest countries are chronically underfunded, under-resourced and fragmented. This leaves them ill-equipped to deal with everyday challenges like malaria and diarrhoea – that claim hundreds of thousands of children’s lives each year – let alone public health crises […]
The Power of the Mobile Phone to Change Lives
Celeste Boca holding the airtime (phone credit) that she sells. She enrolled in AMIMO’s (Association of Migrant Miners Mozambique) income generating activities workshop, supported by VSO through the Phoning Out Poverty and AIDS (POPA) project. The training is also supported by Mcel, a Mozambican phone company, who provide subsidized airtime that the women can sell […]