A Road to Market for Haitian Mangoes
I arrived in Haiti one year after the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010. Life in Port-au-Prince was still chaotic, evidence of not only the natural disaster, but generations of economic distress. But I quickly discovered something else about Haiti – its proud, defiant people, refusing to give up. Throughout that first year, my Haitian […]
Smart Aid – Why it's All About Jobs
Today, the UK Development Secretary, Justine Greening, delivered a speech at the London Stock Exchange on the role of business in economic growth: “Smart aid: Why it’s all about jobs”. Below is a transcript of the speech. It’s a great pleasure to be here with everyone this morning. And I want to say a massive […]
Smart Aid – Why it’s All About Jobs
Today, the UK Development Secretary, Justine Greening, delivered a speech at the London Stock Exchange on the role of business in economic growth: “Smart aid: Why it’s all about jobs”. Below is a transcript of the speech. It’s a great pleasure to be here with everyone this morning. And I want to say a massive […]
Mistaken Beliefs Blocking Progress for the Poor
Melinda and I published our latest Annual Letter this week. It’s a bit of a departure for us. Unlike the past five letters, this one isn’t about the foundation’s work. Instead, we decided to take on some of the myths — about poverty, overpopulation and foreign aid — that are blocking progress for the poor. […]
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. […]
Twin Tracks and Unusual Allies in Tackling Inequality
The first two days of this year’s Davos gathering have centred on one major issue: income inequality. Right at the start of the meeting a letter from Pope Francis raised the issue, challenging the gathered leaders to make sure wealth served humanity, not the other way around. Oxfam upped the tempo with a widely-covered report […]
Inclusive Business Priorities for the New Year
The close of 2013 brings with it the inevitable series of lists of the best and worst of the year. It’s good to reflect on deeds past, but this list takes a different approach: it describes what these lists should say a year from now. Six business specialists from across CARE International answered the question: […]
Tackling Obesity and Hidden Hunger
Cancer. Stroke. Heart disease. Diabetes. These and other noncommunicable diseases are becoming leading causes of death and disease worldwide. And nutrition plays a significant role. A new report from UK think tank the Overseas Development Institute shows that globally, one in three adults was overweight or obese in 2008, an increase of 23 percent since […]
M-PESA: Innovating New Business Models at the BoP
M-Pesa is one of the biggest success stories in the history of serving customers at the economic bottom of the pyramid–the world’s poorest. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, it quickly dominated the cash transfer market, and grew at an astounding rate, capturing more than two-thirds of Kenya’s adult population as customers. Users who subscribe to […]
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 […]
How M-PESA Innovates New Business Models for its Base of the Pyramid Customers
M-Pesa is one of the biggest success stories in the history of serving customers at the economic bottom of the pyramid–the world’s poorest. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, it quickly dominated the cash transfer market, and grew at an astounding rate, capturing more than two-thirds of Kenya’s adult population as customers. Users who subscribe to […]
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), […]
5 Things Changemakers Can Learn From Muhammad Yunus
It is unlikely that the 15-year-old Muhammad Yunus, who visited North America on a Boy Scout trip a half century ago, ever imagined returning 57 years later to receive the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He was awarded such an accolade earlier this year because he’s had a profound influence on the way the world […]
Top 10 Discussions of 2013
In January 2013 we launched our new discussion forum, with regular live panel chats. We also co-hosted Google Hangouts with Ashoka and webinars with the Business Call to Action and others. Most recently, we were excited to host a Google Hangout with Paul Polak, one of the true gurus in this field (click here to […]
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), […]