Can Business Help Combat Hunger and Malnutrition?
Has the past month seen real green shoots around engaging the private sector in the struggle to end malnutrition in the world? Perhaps. The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos was a step change with business and political leaders signing up to the UN Secretary General’s “Zero Hunger” challenge to eliminate hunger in our lifetimes. […]
How Can We Ensure Food Security for the Future?
As we join fellow chief executives and global leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2014 in Davos-Klosters, one of the top issues on our minds is global food security. Ensuring that we have enough to feed our current and future populations, and providing sustainable livelihoods to farmers and rural communities, are pressing challenges. […]
Breaking Down Financial Barriers to Healthcare
There is an African proverb which says: “If you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to go far, travel with others.” Travelling fast is all very well. But to go far – to secure genuine, long-lasting development that helps people live healthier, more productive lives – then travelling with others is paramount. […]
Tackling Obesity and Hidden Hunger
Cancer. Stroke. Heart disease. Diabetes. These and other noncommunicable diseases are becoming leading causes of death and disease worldwide. And nutrition plays a significant role. A new report from UK think tank the Overseas Development Institute shows that globally, one in three adults was overweight or obese in 2008, an increase of 23 percent since […]
Inspiring Innovation: Healthcare Innovation Award
The hospitals and clinics of the developing world might seem an unexpected source of innovation at first glance. However it is increasingly becoming evident that the limited resources available in these environments challenge those involved in the delivery of healthcare services to find more creative solutions to the problems they face. Where there is potential […]
Pushing the Boundaries of Multi-Sector Partnerships
The simple habit of handwashing with soap is not universally practised and traditional hygiene promotion efforts have had limited impact. Research showed that fear of disease was not a key motivator of handwashing behaviour. Across key regions, a behaviour change was needed and campaigns were developed which looked at key motivations for behaviour change including […]
Improving Lives through Handwashing
Unilever’s health soap brand Lifebuoy is working with the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), an innovative model for helping poor rural African communities reach all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MVP is a community-led development approach based on an integrated package of interventions in all sectors including agriculture, health, education, infrastructure and business development. In 2012, […]
Empowering Mothers to Save Child Lives
Becoming a mother is one of life’s most joyous moments. In an instant perspectives change and the instinct to protect takes hold. Providing a safe and nurturing environment is top priority for mothers around the world. Imagine doing that in an environment where your child might not live to reach five years old. This is […]
Why Handwashing Matters
Working in almost 70 countries means I spend a lot of time traveling and meeting people. A father of small children myself, I try to start my day in the villages I visit getting to know the lay of the land with the kids, kicking a soccer ball around, or just goofing off as kids […]
Brands as a Lever of Change
There are some issues in the world that are so big, so entrenched, so important, that we cannot afford to leave them to any one type of organisation to address. Two million children every year not living to reach their fifth birthday because of diarrhoeal disease and pneumonia is one such issue. Each death is […]
Bringing ‘Smart Insurance’ to India´s Poor
Anjali Devi has come a long way from her home in rural Punjab to the public hospital in Mohali, the capital of the district. The three hour bus ride to the hospital has led her and her husband get up early in the morning to make sure that they can make it back home the […]
81 Pro-Poor Health Innovations
From her light-flooded office in central Mumbai, Sweta Mangal oversees a fast-growing emergency transport company. In the last year, Ziqitza Healthcare Limited nearly doubled the number of ambulances it operates from 460 to more than 850. Many of these ambulances respond to emergency calls across three states through the government-funded hotline Dial 108. The Center […]
Better Menstrual Hygiene is Good for Business
Every girl has a story about it. No woman, however old, probably forgets the experience of her first period. And the experience is more likely to have been negative than positive. In the developed world, where sanitary products are still advertised using a blue liquid that has yet to emerge from women, there is probably […]
The Role of Business in Tackling the Sanitation Crisis
Approximately 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, of which nearly 1 billion practise open defecation. The health issues that result are a major source of human suffering while the associated economic issues keep communities, and nations, trapped in poverty. Diarrhoeal disease that is in a large part a result of inadequate sanitation, unsafe […]
Taking Action to Tackle the Sanitation Crisis
This year, United Nations Member States unanimously adopted a resolution to recognise 19th November as World Toilet Day as a way to raise awareness of the 2.5 billion people who lack access to a clean, safe toilet and help generate action to make sanitation a global priority. Today marks the first UN recognised celebration of […]
Healthcare Innovations Through Inclusive Business Models
FoodTrade – Delivering the Goods
The last 60 years have been good to you. You’ve probably never run out of affordable food or cheap energy and you’ll likely live longer than your grandparents. What’s more, you can travel anywhere in the world in less than a day, and access virtual omniscience from the palm of your hand. Life is very, […]
Sumitomo Chemical and the Market for Bednets
When I first learnt about the partnership of Sumitomo Chemical and A to Z Textile Mills Ltd. in Tanzania it seemed like pure success. In 2007, I was working on the UNDP report “Creating Value for All”, and the story about local manufacturing of mosquito nets was one of my favourite case studies. Sumitomo Chemical, […]
A Story About Sumitomo Chemical and the Market for Bednets
When I first learnt about the partnership of Sumitomo Chemical and A to Z Textile Mills Ltd. in Tanzania it seemed like pure success. In 2007, I was working on the UNDP report “Creating Value for All”, and the story about local manufacturing of mosquito nets was one of my favourite case studies. Sumitomo Chemical, […]
Getting to the Bottom of…Toilet Innovation
Danielle Batist, Communications Associate at Ashoka UK More than a third of the world population does not have access to a clean toilet. 1.1 billion people defecate in the open. On the first UN-recognised World Toilet Day on 19 November, two social entrepreneurs explain why “everyone should give a shit”. When the UN Deputy Secretary-General […]