Understanding Local Markets Can Create Green Jobs and Improved Livelihoods in African Cities
Understanding Local Markets Can Create Green Jobs and Improved Livelihoods in African Cities Halima Awol, a 30-year-old mother of two, is a hard worker and does everything she can to provide for her family. However, despite her best efforts and strong work ethic, the most she was able to earn was 2,800 Ethiopian birr–barely more […]
Tackling Digital and Financial Exclusion: Women Vendors Raising Themselves Out of Poverty with Social Media Marketing
In 2020 Hand in Hand began an innovative project with Visa Inc., providing advanced business and digital training to 1,280 female microbusiness owners living in Nairobi’s informal settlements, described by the UN as “some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world.” But, just months after the project began, Kenya was hit […]
From Zero to Hero: Establishing the Commercial Mung Bean Sector in Indonesia
From Zero to Hero: Establishing the Commercial Mung Bean Sector in Indonesia The mighty mung beans generate a triple benefit for smallholder farmers — additional income, affordable nutrient-rich food, and increased soil fertility. They’re also low maintenance, have minimal production costs, and a short growing time. It’s no surprise that they’re a popular crop, with […]
Gender Empowerment: How Carbon Finance & Investing in Climate Solutions Drives Positive Impact
Increasingly people realise that climate and CO2 emissions cannot be considered in isolation – a changing climate impacts biodiversity and the ecosystem services we rely on. But it also has an outsize impact on women and girls, particularly those in developing countries where there is a higher reliance on natural resources for livelihood and survival. […]
New Research Reveals Women Entrepreneurs are Facing Enormous Challenges: The Private Sector Must Take Action to Close the Gender Gap
Women entrepreneurs are battling multiple challenges As economic, political, social and humanitarian crises continue to rock the world many women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries are left grappling with the devastating impacts. Existing gender inequalities were intensified and further entrenched in societies as a knock-on effect of COVID-19 and the cost of living […]
How to Build a Robust Human Rights System
“Some problems are just too complex for a simple solution. When it comes to human rights abuses, a punitive approach can drive the problem underground, making it even harder to address.” As a human rights specialist at the Rainforest Alliance, I have learned that creating an environment where farming communities feel supported to speak up […]
Gender and Climate Change: Sustainability Systems Supporting Adaptation and Resilience
Women bear a disproportionate burden of the adverse impacts of climate change. In low- and middle-income countries, women are highly dependent on agriculture and natural resources, which, combined with existing inequalities, leaves them especially vulnerable. Yet, they are important economic actors who can play a critical role in tackling climate issues if given the right […]
Refugee Employment Through Remote Work: How Na’amal is Creating Change
There are approximately 29 million displaced people who are categorized as “refugees” worldwide. Within this group, self-sufficiency proves to be difficult with many individuals being subjected to informal work in precarious conditions and in indignity to be able to afford their basic needs. The premise for such treatment, in most cases, continues to solely be […]
Women Smallholders Will Drive Africa’s Transition to Regenerative Agriculture
An estimated 140 million people in Africa are facing acute food insecurity[1], yet, in Kenya alone, 50% of all productive soil is badly degraded. Worse still, because of record droughts, half of Kenyan farmers have harvested nothing in the last four seasons. Regenerative agriculture techniques offer the world’s poorest farmers a lifeline, restoring soils and […]
Time to Act on Mental Health: UNICEF’s Global Coalition for Youth Mental Well-being
The Global Coalition for Youth Mental Well-being, hosted by UNICEF, was born out of the belief that the mental well-being of youth cannot be addressed by one entity alone but needs collective action. It is time for joint action on mental health. Mental health and psychosocial well-being are fundamental components of a child’s healthy development […]
Effective Partnerships: Key to Supporting Climate Vulnerable Communities
A quarter of the world’s population already faces significant flood risk, which is particularly challenging for people already living in or vulnerable to poverty. Which is why our partnership with Zurich Insurance to help change the way flood risk is understood and managed so that communities can continue to thrive is so important. Ten years […]
Women Cotton Farmers and Climate Solutions
I was very happy to be a part of Business Fights Poverty’s Climate Justice Summit. The topic of conversation – gender equity and its role in combatting climate change – is one of the most pertinent subjects. And it got me seriously thinking about the work we’re doing at CottonConnect, and how we can boost […]
Impact Places: Shaping Sustainable, Inclusive Urban (Re)development
In an increasingly urban world, we need to devise sustainable, engaged and constructive ways to live together in urban centres. Globally, over 50% of the population lives in cities. This figure is set to rise to roughly 70% by 2050 worldwide, and to over 80% in Europe. But not all cities are growing. Across the […]
International Migrants Day: Why Access to Remedy is Crucial
Today, on International Migrants Day, we focus on millions of people who have left their native homes, for different reasons, to live and work abroad. In 2021, the International Labour Organization estimated there were 169 million migrant workers. Anyone working, temporarily or permanently, in a country of which they do not hold a passport, is […]
Africa’s Farmers Need Climate Finance. The Private Sector Must Step Up.
In 2009, the global community gathered at the COP conference in Copenhagen and pledged to mobilize $100 billion of annual climate financing for low- and middle-income countries by 2020. It was a historic commitment, and we failed to deliver on it. While the $100 billion target has been pushed out to 2025, the needs of […]
Rethinking Shelter: Bangladesh’s New Approach to Protecting Lives and Livelihoods
BRAC and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) are working together to model and scale up efforts to build climate migrant-friendly cities in a country described as an “internal migration pressure cooker,” where catastrophic weather events have pushed migrants into overcrowded urban centers. GCA’s Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation is located in the GCA South […]
Access to Menstrual Health & Hygiene Products in Rural Ethiopia
Menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) is a term used to encapsulate the broader systemic factors that link menstruation with health, well-being, equity, empowerment, and individual rights. Around the world, MHH is challenged by the stigma and shame associated with menstruation, which affects the ability of menstruators to access a myriad of resources such as accurate and […]
Network of Small-Scale farmers in India Tackle Climate Change
“It was a turning point for me,” said Ruchi Jain, Founder and CEO of Taru Naturals, about her trip to the villages of small-scale farmers in India struggling with the effects of climate change. “I realized that if you want to make a big impact on the world, you have to be grassroots-based—it has to be […]
Effective Support for Women Entrepreneurs Goes Beyond Skills Training
Effective Support for Women Entrepreneurs Goes Beyond Skills Training Bernadette Sambo is an entrepreneur, wife, and mother of three in Maputo province, Mozambique. The challenge of balancing these roles is only made more difficult by restrictive gender-based social and familial expectations. “It had been very difficult to work and negotiate with my husband,” she recalls. […]
Steps for improving incomes in banana supply chains
Banana producers face an ever-tightening financial squeeze, caused by soaring export costs, plummeting import prices, climate change, Covid-19, supermarket price wars and the fusarium TR4 fungus. Add to this rising food prices and shortages of farming inputs like fertiliser, and you have a perfect storm. These challenges threaten the prospects of smallholder banana farmers and […]