The Finalists: Unilever Global Development Award
The Unilever Global Development Award supported by Business Fights Poverty, identifies business programmes that are demonstrating a positive impact in addressing global poverty as captured in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Addressing these challenges is vital to achieving the transformative change needed to create a fairer society and a more sustainable future for all. […]
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 […]
Corporations Supporting Women’s Economic Progress
The past month has seen multiple global events commemorating International Women’s Day, including CCC’s stellar collaboration with the UN Office of Partnerships and UN Women, The Empowerment Bridge: Building a Lifetime of Opportunity for Wome… These events have emphasized some common points: though the world has seen much progress for women and girls in the […]
Time for African Governments to say I do to Innovators
Moraa, a 22-year-old Computer Science major at Nairobi University, wants to change the world through technology. That’s why she entered her latest idea—an app for expectant mothers that doles out on-demand advice—in a campus-wide contest to win $10,000 in startup funds. Born in a small village far from a hospital, Moraa witnessed her mother, aunt […]
Economically Empowering Women Through The SDGs
The real challenge for the new Sustainable Development Goals is what happens after they are agreed. Deciding on the goals and targets is only the first step; backing them up with the commitment to implement them is crucial. The emerging consensus between the private sector, civil society, governments and multilateral agencies on the need for […]
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 […]
How Can Business Fight Ebola? Beyond “Gift-in-Kind”
Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia’s Assistant Minister of Health stated recently: “We must use this momentum not just to get back to where we were, but to build up health systems to last beyond this crisis and into the next.” (Devex, 3 Pitfalls Ebola Recovery must avoid, May 2015). While there is need to see opportunities for […]
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 – […]
Investment in Mining, Opportunities for Farmers?
One sunny morning I’m talking to Mr Kimono Wendo, a Congolese refugee and farmer living in Meheba Refugee Settlement in the North-Western Province of Zambia. Mr Kimono tells me of his 17 year struggle to provide food for his family by growing maize in the rainy season and small patches of vegetables in the dry […]
Act Local, Think Global: The Food Revolution in Zambia
International conversation around food in Africa has traditionally been one of doom and decline. In 2012 the By Meera Patel, Operations Associate at Ashoka UK. You can follow Meera on Twitter. One third of all children suffering from acute malnutrition are located in Sub-saharan Africa. One in four people in the region are under-nourished, and […]
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 […]
Using the Right Language for Each Stage of Growth
Counterfeit products cause huge social problems—estimates suggest that counterfeit tuberculosis and malaria drugs alone cause approximately 700,000 deaths each year—and Sproxil takes a business approach to solve them. Our Mobile Product AuthenticationTM solution can verify the authenticity of almost any product. A sticker with a unique code hidden under a scratch-off layer is applied to […]