The ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ Approach: Responsible Capitalism or Business as Usual?
Yesterday evening I took part in a Public Debate at Saïd Business School, organised by the Centre for New Economies of Development – a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford, Sussex and Edinburgh. The event also saw the launch of a new website to encourage academic discussion and knowledge sharing on the BoP: responsiblebop.com Below […]
At the State Dept., Contributing to an Impact Economy
Today at the US State Department in Washington, D.C., we are convening leaders across sectors and continents to discuss how we can work together to contribute to an impact economy by developing and deploying cutting-edge business and financial models that generate financial returns and positive social and environmental change. During our travels around the world, […]
The Challenges of Achieving Greater Transparency
Voûte, Nestlé Vice President and Global Head of Public Affairs At Nestlé we believe that actions speak louder than words. We have to deliver what we promise. We have to be transparent if we are to persuade our stakeholders, our partners, and our critics, that we are building our business in a long-term, sustainable way. […]
iOnPoverty
Wall Street is facing a recruiting problem, reports the New York Times. The latest reminder that big banks are corrosive for careers of conscience comes from a NY Times op-ed piece by former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith who sharply describes a “toxic and destructive” workplace. Covet a career building economic opportunity and justice? Want […]
Goldman Sachs Versus Careers of Conscience
Wall Street is facing a recruiting problem, reports the New York Times. The latest reminder that big banks are corrosive for careers of conscience comes from a NY Times op-ed piece by former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith who sharply describes a “toxic and destructive” workplace. Covet a career building economic opportunity and justice? Want […]
Water Security and Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water
On Thursday last week (22 March), we at Diageo conducted a webcast presentation to our investor community on how being a sustainable and responsible company is critical in supporting, protecting and strengthening our reputation and driving long term value. Today, stakeholders are increasingly evaluating companies on their ability to support their growth prospects through broader […]
Beyond Microfinance: Can Government Cash Transfers Scale Up Financial Access for the Poorest?
What next after microcredit? The last few years of news scandals in the microfinance arena has created a gap in the credibility and viability of providing effective, low-cost and impactful financial services to the poor. Newer studies calculating the impact of microcredit find controversial development impact. SKS Finance’s $347 mn IPO (coming after Compartamos’ record-breaking […]
Fashion: A Catalyst for Change
The potential of the private sector to reduce poverty is well recognized; however, this has not been evident in the fashion industry. Fashion is one of the most globalized sectors, providing employment to more than 60 million people, mainly women and unskilled workers from poor economies. And it is expanding. According to Datamonitor, 2010, the […]
Winning with Purpose
Business has been a powerful force in improving the lives of millions of people on our planet – whether through product and service innovation, job creation or new opportunities for suppliers and distributors. Yet, I believe business can do so much more. As the Occupy movement has highlighted, huge inequalities remain – and companies such […]
International Development – The Role of an Enabling Business
FRSA, Head of Corporate Responsibility, Herbert Smith LLP Global law firm Herbert Smith is currently engaged in a transatlantic experiment, one that is connecting lawyers from our London office with the Government of Sierra Leone. The experiment is designed to answer a question about what professional services firms can do to help developing countries grow […]
Villages in Action
It has been just over a year since we held the first ever globally broadcast Villages in Action conference. We did what had previously seemed impossible and a non-factor in the development complex. We dared to build a stage for “the poor” and handed over the microphone so they could be part of the global […]
The SAB Foundation Invests in Social Innovation
The inaugural SAB Foundation Innovation Awards recently recognised innovators who are helping improve the lives of low-income South Africans. The Awards are part of the SAB Foundation’s focus on igniting a culture of entrepreneurship in South Africa as a source of economic growth, job creation and innovation. The awards aim to showcase and scale commercialisable […]
Smallholders Critical to Reigniting Rural Development in Asia
Rural poverty has declined throughout Asia and the overall economic performance has increased. Agricultural development has played a major role in these improvements with smallholder farmers in the lead. Around the world they already feed almost a third of the world’s population and produce 80 per ent of the food consumed in the developing world. […]
SABMiller launches first ever cassava lager in Mozambique
SABMiller plc, one of the world’s largest brewers, today announced the launch of the first ever commercial-scale cassava-based beer. The beer, ‘Impala’, will be brewed in Mozambique by SABMiller’s local subsidiary, Cervejas de Moçambique (CDM). The launch marks the latest step in SABMiller’s ambition to create a portfolio of high-quality, affordable beers made using locally-sourced […]
Hiring a Corporate Volunteering Consultant? Here’s what to expect.
Your consultant should be intelligent, experienced, and competent. Here are a few pointers to help you choose the corporate volunteering consultant who can meet your company’s needs. Most of our readers work in the field of Corporate Citizenship, CSR, Corporate Community Investment and Corporate Volunteering. The majority are directly responsible for their company’s employee volunteering […]
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires – the primary means of cooking and heating for nearly three billion people in the developing world – causes 1.9 million premature deaths annually. According to the World Health Organisation, almost all of these deaths are linked to lung health issues, with slightly more than half […]
Supply Chain Risk and Sustainability: Potential for Partnership
Markets and Value Chains, Private Sector and Markets Programme, Overseas Development Institute Uncertainty abounds. The global climate is changing – catastrophic … cropping up with alarming frequency. Weather patterns are increasingly unpredictable; rains fail or floods destroy whole settlements. Commodity prices are rising; energy and fuel costs are increasing, (oil-based) fertiliser is increasingly expensive and […]
Why the latest Coca-Cola/SABMiller report helps us all move forward
Tracking what happens up and down a company’s value chain, where and how poor people engage, can be massively revealing. So I welcome the new report, ‘Exploring the Links between International Business and Poverty Redu…; The Coca-Cola/SAB Miller value chain impacts in Zambia and El Salvador.’ It’s not earth shattering, but that is precisely why […]
Joe Phelan: Rolling up Sleeves for Development
In the world’s top corporate boardrooms, its lecture theatres and in the planning sessions of think tanks and development agencies such as my own, much is made of uncovering new business solutions for development challenges. Inclusive innovation is the current buzz. This is important work. Today, in rural Maharastra, India, I was reminded of another […]
Acumen Fund and AECF: Innovative Approaches to Financing Pro-Poor Business
An increasing number of businesses find that investing in pro-poor business approaches yields not only bottom line rewards, but also poverty alleviation. However, employing these inclusive business models to produce such results can be challenging when short-term time horizons exist for capital investments and barriers to financial access persist for small and medium-sized enterprises. During […]