A New Programme to Bring out Innovation and Change
Do you remember some of your most productive learning moments as an adult? They likely involved solving problems that were relevant to your life or working environment, and in an informal atmosphere. Learning moments in the inclusive business field are no exception. I vividly remember some “accelerated” learning experiences like arriving in Rwanda with what […]
A New Approach to Sustainable Global Development
By Mark Stafford Smith, Future Earth There is no escaping the fact that our world is changing fast. A global population of 11 billion by the year 2100. ‘Severe and irreversible’ climate change. Demand for efficient renewable energy sources and more sustainable consumption. Escalating concerns for food and water security. How can science, policy and […]
Closing the Early-Stage Financing Gap for Entrepreneurs
Picture your favorite startup company operating in the developing world. It might be selling solar lanterns to off-grid communities, providing transportation services for agricultural commodities, or perhaps operating a chain of grocery stores. Regardless of its sector or location, like any startup it probably did not follow a direct path to scale and success. It […]
How will you Step Forward in 2015?
Friday 5 December marks International Volunteer Day and to coincide with this, VSO is launching a new global campaign inviting people to pledge to #StepForward and raise the profile of volunteering for development in 2015. This campaign builds on recent research conducted by VSO and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) demonstrating that ‘human-capital’ is […]
Economically Empowering Women at Scale in South Africa
Ngoetsana Sehlabo is known by her community in Orange Farm, South Africa as Mampho. For many years she was a hawker, on the streets selling a local dish called ‘atcha’. In 2012, she branched out and set up her own store – Mampho’s Fast Food – to sell food, drinks and snacks. After a year, […]
IFC’s New Report on Inclusive Business
About 4.5 billion people in developing countries are low-income, living on $81 a day or less. They are the so-called base of the economic pyramid and constitute a $5 trillion consumer market. However, the success of local businesses has often been lost in the discussion of ‘BOP business’ to date. While case studies abound on […]
M4D: Addressing The Infrastructure Access Gap
Women fetching water near Tambacounda, Eastern Senegal The GSMA and DFID announced on the 20th of October that an additional £6 million in funding has been provided by DFID to extend the GSMA’s work to improve energy, water and sanitation, as part of its newly branded Mobile for Development Utilities programme. The programme builds on […]
Cambodia: Growing Momentum for Sanitation
By KC Koch, iDE WASH Communications Manager On a Sunday morning, rural villagers gather in the village meetinghouse. A respected member of the local commune committee calls for the group’s attention. She leads them in games and stimulates lively conversations about proper sanitation. People wave fans in the air decorated with colorful photographs and consult […]
Working Toward Sustainability in the Sugar Sector
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Bonsucro, originally known as the Better Sugarcane Initiative, is taking place in Manila this week. I remember the first AGM in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2008. It was a small group then, about 25 people. I participated in the review of the first draft Production Standard, visited the São […]
Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Rashid is a farmer I met in the Marangu region around Kilimanjaro, like his father and grandfather as well as the thousands of other farmers in the region he farms coffee, bananas and a variety of other vegetables. With declining crop prices, the income he earns from these crops is negligible and most of his […]
Global Development Award: Could you be the next winner?
With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) culminating at the end of 2015, the race is now on to achieve the targets with demonstrable impact. At Business in the Community, through the Unilever Global Development Award supported by Business Fights Poverty, we recognise businesses that can demonstrate positive impact against one or more of the United […]
Vegetable Seeds – Growth in Nutrition and the Economy
At the wholesale market in Arusha, Tanzania, it’s all about tomatoes. Everywhere you look, there are stacks of wooden crates piled high with the crimson orbs, ready to be packed onto trucks and driven off to the capital, Dar es Salaam, for distribution throughout the region. The thriving tomato trade is among the most visible […]
Challenging Assumptions Start-ups Can’t Reach Scale
Can start-ups scale? Can social enterprises reach sufficient millions of people to really crack problems of poverty? This question has been around for many years. Now first answers are emerging. A crop of ‘breakthrough’ social enterprises are emerging. They are growing fast, securing investment and partners, and reaching millions of people. Of course they do […]
Enabling Frameworks for Social and Green Enterprises
Over the last four years SEED has hosted a series of unique multi-stakeholder for a focussed on the Green Economy and Africa – the SEED Symposia – where each year innovative and promising start-up enterprises, that won a SEED Award for their remarkable efforts to address social and environmental challenges at the grassroots, are presented. […]
How a New Breed of Multinationals Can Root Out Poverty
The number of people now living on $2 a day or less is greater than the world’s total population in 1950, when the global fight against poverty began. Only business can marshal the resources (human and financial) and the incentives (profits and wages) to address this tragic reality at scale, and sustain the effort for […]
Emerge 2014 – Living with Purpose, and Other Highlights
Great minds from all reaches of the social entrepreneurship realm came together at Said Business School this weekend for an intensive, 2-day conference to discuss some of the arena’s most pressing insights, developments and issues. Lead by Oxford’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, in conjunction with Student Hubs, this year’s Emerge Conference saw several major […]
How to Strengthen the Link Between Development and Trade
EU trade policy lacks development and EU development policy lacks trade. The new EU Trade Commissioner must recognise that trade policy is not just about promoting the EU’s direct commercial interests: it is also a key tool to stimulate economic growth in the developing world. It is both hypocritical and self-defeating for the EU to […]
Financing for Humanitarian Action
Monika Vrsanska/CAFOD Visioning the Future: Future Humanitarian Financing is bringing together experts from Business and Private Sector to explore new approaches to meet the financial costs of responding to crises such as the Pakistan Floods. CAFOD, World Vision and the Food and Agriculture Organization have been tasked by the Inter-Agency Standing Team in Geneva to […]
We Need to Talk About Toilets
You visit the toilet about six to eight times a day on average 2,500 times a year. This amounts to three years of your life spent sitting on a toilet. If you are lucky. If you are not one of the two and a half billion people in the world unable to access adequate sanitation. […]
Closing the Information Gap on Impact Investment
Information, as they say, is power. Nowhere is this truer than in business and finance. Most new business ventures will involve an element of risk or a leap of faith. However, the better calculated that risk, or the more accurately measured the leap, the better the chance of success. Which is why, the Impact Programme, […]