Addressing WASH Needs Outside the Factory
This leadership perspective is part of a series on the theme of creating business value and development impact in the WASH sector. The series and accompanying discussion paper are co-produced by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor and Business Fights Poverty. Supporting suppliers with initiatives and programmes that improve their operations beyond auditing is […]
Helping to Create New Toilet Businesses in India
This leadership perspective is part of a series on the theme of creating business value and development impact in the WASH sector. The series and accompanying discussion paper are co-produced by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor and Business Fights Poverty. As one of the world’s fastest growing emerging economies, India presents a significant […]
Creating Business Value and Development Impact in WASH
This leadership perspective is part of a series on the theme of creating business value and development impact in the WASH sector. The series and accompanying discussion paper are co-produced by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor and Business Fights Poverty. This week we’ll be running a series of leadership perspectives on the theme […]
Agribusiness and Climate Change: The Smart Way Forward
The world’s smallholder farmers – and therefore much of the planet’s food supply – are under severe threat from climate change. While many businesses are stepping up their response to these complex challenges, and increasingly advocating for pragmatic and science-based solutions, many are frequently met with mistrust and opposition. I have often heard businesses offer […]
The Evolution of the BoP Market in Latin America
By Lina Salazar O, Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) at the Inter-American Development Bank. It has been more than ten years since we first read about the base of the pyramid (BOP) and the large and virtually untapped market represented by this socio-economic segment. People at the BOP in Latin America and the Caribbean live […]
Government and Policy in Inclusive Business
I am returning to this topic because I think that any discussion of the role of government and policy in inclusive business will benefit from understanding better how IB contributes to a transformation in a specific market system, and indeed vice versa. While all market systems programmes do not involve innovation by an individual company […]
Closing Africa’s Energy Gap
Changing Gender Roles and Nutrition in Bangladesh
Every morning, Lipi cycles down the dusty roads of Mitapukur, a small village in northern Bangladesh, balancing a bag filled with products on her shoulder. Lipi is one of the 160 Nutritional Sales Agents that was trained by the PROOFS (Profitable Opportunities for Food Security) project, an initiative of the three NGOs ICCO, iDE, BoP […]
The Role of the Private Sector in Post-Ebola Recovery
For more than one year Ebola has raged in West Africa. Thankfully, we are beginning to see the end of the epidemic with Liberia now having being declared ‘Ebola-free’ after 42 days with no new cases – and new infection rates at very low levels in Sierra Leone and Guinea. This is good news. But, […]
Delivering Business Value Through Smart CR
Speaking at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ event in London, Zelda Bentham, Group Head of Environment & Climate Change, shares how Aviva derives business value by taking an integrated and business driven approach to delivering environmental and social impacts at scale. At Aviva, we continually seek to maximise the long term value delivered by […]
Promoting Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development
Marquard, SEED On 20 April, ten years ago, five start-up entrepreneurs from Bolivia, Cambodia, Madagascar, Nepal and Nigeria travelled to New York to attend the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). They were to receive the first SEED Awards for their innovative approaches to advance sustainable development at the grassroots. Little did they – […]
The Right Language for Embedding Sustainability
At SABMiller, we understand that our profitability depends on healthy communities, growing economies and the responsible use of scarce natural resources. Last year we launched a new sustainable development ambition we call Prosper with five major goals and associated targets: accelerating growth and social development through our value chains; making beer the natural choice for […]
Business Action on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
2015 is set to be a landmark year for sustainable development. By the end of 2015, we should have in place a new set of global development priorities: the Sustainable Development Goals, a new framework for financing and delivering them, and a legally binding climate change agreement. A key difference today compared to 2000, when […]
What Is the Best Way to Measure Innovation?
Commenting on the state of innovativeness, Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and legendary Silicon Valley investor, remarked, “We asked for flying cars. Instead, we got a hundred and forty characters.” Really, Peter? Who asked for flying cars? Silicon Valley is, of course, obsessed with cars of many kinds – self-driven, electric, enabled by commands and […]
A Conversation with Erik Simanis
Erik Simanis is Head of the Frontier Markets Initiative at Cornell University. His work is published in leading management journals, including the Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal. He also writes for The Guardian’s sustainable business, and is a core faculty member of the Intrapreneurship Lab. His thinking is grounded in hands-on experience, […]
Interview with Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash, Bangladesh
Katie Allen interviews Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash, mobile money provider in Bangladesh. Q1: Many of us have heard of the M-Pesa phenomenon that achieved great success in East Africa, but bKash remains under the radar. How is BKash different from other mobile money providers? Kamal Quadir: In terms of customer experience, bKash is no […]
Donors’ New Role in the Fight Against Poverty
A remarkable thing happened over the past two decades: the world grew richer, freer, and more secure than ever before. The end of the Cold War in 1991 was a seminal event not least because it ushered in these trends. Democratic governance has flourished in many countries where a mere 20 years earlier repression and […]
Championing Responsible Sugar Production & Procurement
Our world is faced with dire global water challenges. A major contributing factor to these challenges is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the world’s water withdrawals. Sugar, a critical ingredient in many food and beverage products, including ours, is a highly thirsty crop and one of the most complex. While the sugarcane sector […]
Championing Responsible Sugar Production & Procurement
Our world is faced with dire global water challenges. A major contributing factor to these challenges is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the world’s water withdrawals. Sugar, a critical ingredient in many food and beverage products, including ours, is a highly thirsty crop and one of the most complex. While the sugarcane sector […]
Engage Your Supply Chain to Find the Mutual Benefits
Given that sugar is such a ubiquitous food ingredient and accounts for significant land use, it is heartening to see leading companies and development organizations prioritizing the sustainability of this ingredient. Global demand is projected to require an estimated 49% increase in land under cane production alone by 2050. The sector is facing serious and […]