6 Ways Businesses Can Be Inclusive and Socially Responsive
The big question that us development professionals who are working at the intersections of development and business faces today is whether private sector led growth can be inclusive and socially responsive. Our experience on that count is mixed. Businesses obviously promote economic growth, jobs and other associated social benefits. However, the business models generally tend […]
iDE and innocent foundation: Creating successful NGO-Business Partnerships
Since 2006 non-profit organisation iDE UK and the innocent foundation have achieved a major impact in some of the world’s poorest communities in Africa and Asia. They have found new, innovative ways to create shared value that can offer insights into creating successful partnerships between NGOs and the business world. Creating shared value starts with […]
Product Paternalism – Consumer Choice at the BoP
Women’s empowerment means voter choice, partner choice, healthcare choice, reproductive choice, career choice, and consumer choice. Who would argue that a shovel, seeds, and a watering can are not useful and important products to sell in impoverished communities? Or school supplies, study aids, pens, and paper? Or a mattress to lift children off a dirt […]
Leveraging the Potential of Green and Inclusive Businesses
The greatest global challenges of today – poverty, pollution, and climate change – are closely linked. People living at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) are the most vulnerable to environmental pollution and suffer most severely from the consequences of climate change. Achieving green and inclusive growth has become an urgent and challenging priority in […]
Conflicting Trends? Evidence-Based Policy and Systemic Change
Ben Taylor, The Springfield Centre for Business in Development Like British sportspeople and the overuse of acronyms, evidence-based policy and systemic change are in fashion. For the last decade these trends have increasingly been the flavours of the month but no one seems to have realised that, when put together, they taste a bit odd. […]
Event Audio: Base of the Pyramid Consumers – Getting the Right Product to the Right People
Stoves, water purifiers, off-grid power, nutritious foods – so many innovative products and services are being developed for base of the pyramid (BoP) markets. But companies developing these products have to be innovative and creative in the face of several challenges: low purchasing power, traditional consumer preferences and logistical problems (such as inadequate infrastructure) that […]
Marketing GravityLight for the Base of the Pyramid
By Caroline Angus, Associate, On Purpose GravityLight ticks multiple boxes: An innovative form of off-grid lighting? Tick. A light to help eliminate harmful and hazardous kerosene lamps? Yes. A light independent of batteries –their limited lifespan, capacity and issues of disposal? Check. A light that doesn’t rely on the weather? Yup. A light that brings […]
How Can We Create Business Opportunities in the Fight Against Malnutrition?
For decades, hunger has been the most serious problem plaguing developing and newly industrialized countries. While headway has been made in the battle against hunger, two billion people are still suffering from malnutrition in developed and developing countries alike. Because of this, on June 3rd and 4th, Ashoka Changemakers held a Globalizer Summit in Frankfurt, […]
Empowerment Through Metrics
You might be surprised to learn that the solution to global hunger doesn’t lie in simply increasing the world’s food supply. If more food isn’t the answer, then what is? For an issue as wide-reaching as global hunger, the basic questions can be the most important – and most elusive. For example, how do we […]
Agency Through Community
Even the most groundbreaking ideas will fail if only one or two individuals pursue them. In order to reach a tipping point, an idea needs the support of a community—and the bigger the community, the better. That’s why Ashoka invited more than 150 experts from diverse fields to a Globalizer Summit in Frankfurt, Germany this […]
3 Lessons Food Companies Can Learn From Social Entrepreneurs
One panel discussion at Ashoka’s recent Globalizer Summit in Frankfurt, Germany, “Fighting the ‘Hidden Hunger,” brought together stakeholders from various sectors, including funding agencies, agri-businesses, think tanks, nutrition organizations, and social entrepreneurs who were interested in growing a global nutrient economy. Reflecting these diverse backgrounds, the panel included Prof. Dr. Konrad Biesalski, author of the […]
Turning Waste into Wealth – A Young Entrepreneur’s Contribution Towards Community, the Environment, and National Happiness
At just 30 years old, Karma Yonten is Bhutan’s first citizen to turn waste management and recycling into a business. The old saying goes that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”: Karma saw opportunity in the country’s maligned, unsightly and toxic landfills, which had dangerous side-effects for people’s health. His pioneering enterprise, Greener Way, […]
Accelerating Peace through Youth Entrepreneurship
I recently participated in a conference on fighting piracy in Somalia. The topic: how to combat the thousands of men, AK47’s strapped to their backs, that were taking skiffs into the azure blue waters of the Indian Ocean to hijack and loot ships. The conference had a packed schedule, and international security officials discussed everything […]
Cocoa Life and Verification: A Circle of Learning
By Mil Niepold, Senior Mediator, Consensus Building Institute My job is to listen, and to encourage others to be excellent listeners. Listening means being open to hearing what people need and want, what works and what doesn’t. Listening gives others, especially those who haven’t been heard, a voice, and this is key to creating and […]
Technology Boosting Economic Opportunity in Rural Ghana
Almost half of the world’s people live on less than $2.50 a day. In my country, Ghana, nearly 30 percent of the population and almost 60 percent of those under 25 survive below this grim poverty line—facing stark daily choices between spending on food, healthcare, education and shelter. In a world where the wealthiest one […]
Revolutionising the Rice Industry in Mali
When I was growing up in Ethiopia, Cameroon and Mali in the 90s, my friends and I talked about creating companies that addressed problems in our communities. However, we always thought that first we’d have to become financially solvent ourselves. The perception that planting the seeds for a formal business requires a degree of financial […]
Listening to New Voices in International Development
The global development discussion, like global development itself, often appears to be a one-way street: experts in the developed world discuss different strategies for uplifting the world’s poorest communities. It is a worthy but limited conversation, and too often does not include the perspectives of those on the receiving end of development policy. This needs […]
Mixing Business and Social- What Really is a Social Enterprise?
Of course we all know what a ‘social enterprise’ (SE) is in a developing country. It’s obvious, surely? It’s, um, a business that does good things for people, and also makes money. Don’t nit-pick! This is all about dynamism, creativity and innovation. Well, OK, point taken. But nagging doubts remain. What sorts of good things? […]
Harnessing the Business Potential of Honey
I have recently been focusing my time on a honey production company called KEYDA, one of the two selected youth led companies on whom the business booster will be tested in the third phase of the pilot. To get a better picture of their current status and in order to assure a certain level that […]
Innovation Leaders: 3 Questions for Non-profit & For-profit Innovation Leaders
I returned home to Boston after a 10 day conference “intensive” – the Council on Foundations in Chicago, the World Healthcare Congress in Washington, D.C. and the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford – looking forward to a Patriot’s Day holiday to recover and enjoy a beloved Boston tradition, the Marathon. Of course, […]