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. […]
Enterprise: Focusing on the Next Generation
UNICEF refers to early childhood (pre-natal to eight years old) as the “years of wonder.” In no other period in human life is the brain so responsive to changes in the environment and so able to learn, grow, and develop. Billions of highly integrated neural circuits in the brain are established through the interaction of […]
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 […]
Innovations Against Poverty: Systemic Impacts
Systemic impacts are the ultimate goal of almost any donor-funded initiative that supports business in development. In the case of Sida’s Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) programme, that means that Sida’s money not only supports the individual inclusive businesses that receive grant funding (helping them to reach the poor with their products, services and business models), […]
Systemic Impacts: Early signs from the Innovations Against Poverty programme
Systemic impacts are the ultimate goal of almost any donor-funded initiative that supports business in development. In the case of Sida’s Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) programme, that means that Sida’s money not only supports the individual inclusive businesses that receive grant funding (helping them to reach the poor with their products, services and business models), […]
Investing in Agriculture in the DRC
Since the launch of CDC’s current strategy in 2012, our aim has been to invest where our job creation focus can have the greatest impact: in countries where the private sector is weak and jobs are scarce, and in sectors where growth leads to jobs. Our recently announced US$18.1m investment into Feronia, an agricultural production […]
Disrupted: The Future INGO
“Some of the routine service activities that INGOs have historically implemented–health care, food delivery –can now be carried out by local operators at a lower cost. The question now is: What do we bring to the picture that others cannot?” —Carolyn Woo, CEO, Catholic Relief Services Today’s international NGOs or INGOs stand at an important […]
HOW-TO BOLDLY AND BRAVELY BET ON YOURSELF
To describe itself to itself and to attract new converts, it is common these days for the nonprofit sector to talk in terms of investment – obscuring the legal and legitimate lines between grants and donations versus opportunities to make money by doing good (often called impact investing). Equally confusing, both financial investments and social […]
A Challenge to Both Business and Vulnerable Communities
In September, the IPCC published the Fifth Annual Report on the Physical Basis of Climate Change. It devotes little attention to the human and ecological impacts of global environmental and climatic change, topics that will be addressed by working group reports released in early 2014 . Nonetheless, the trajectory of climate and other environmental changes […]
Exploring the Boundaries of What a Business Can Achieve
Three innovative start-up companies are pushing the boundaries of what business can achieve in delivering social goals through a commercially sustainable model. Each is building a sustainable business model with dual social and commercial returns in a space previously assumed to be occupied by donors, NGOs or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments. A few years […]
Exploring The Boundaries Of What A Business Can Viably Achieve
Three innovative start-up companies are pushing the boundaries of what business can achieve in delivering social goals through a commercially sustainable model. Each is building a sustainable business model with dual social and commercial returns in a space previously assumed to be occupied by donors, NGOs or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments. A few years […]
Growing More Food with Less Water
When you sit down to your next meal, take a look at your plate. How much water do you see? The obvious answer might be “little” or “none”. But the surprising truth is you are likely consuming thousands of liters of water every time you sit down for a quick bite. Estimates suggest the average […]
Get to Know the Winners of the CHANGING Markets Award
The 16th IBF in Istanbul ended with exciting news: the announcement of the jury-elected Winners of the CHANGING Markets Award! They are true champions in developing markets for green and inclusive growth. But what exactly is a green and inclusive business? Get to know the winning business models and discuss the strengths and also the […]
To Change A Company, You Need Intrapreneurs
It can be hard to get a big, slow company to change its ways. It’s the efforts of courageous intrapreneurs that can change their trajectory. The key is to make your company a place where intrapreneurs can thrive. Multinational corporations aren’t always known for their agility. Organizational change, product evolution, or rebranding–just some of the […]
A Bright Future for All – Building Business Responsibly
Every day, when watching the news and checking the social channels, we see pictures and read stories of famine and floods, droughts and demonstrations, confronting us with the effects of increasing resource scarcity, climate change, food security, civil unrest and poverty. We see the increasing numbers of people left behind. Many wonder how on earth […]
The Power of Sustainable Supply Chains
Supply chains can be made stronger and more sustainable if the people working at different stages in them have stable and sufficient earnings. This is the basis for The Body Shop’s “Community Fair Trade” programme, which ensures 25,000 workers in marginalised communities earn a fair wage. The programme directly benefits more than 320,000 people per […]