How a Sanitation Waste Partnership is Transforming Cities in Bangladesh
SWEEP, a simple yet highly effective public-private partnership model, was launched in 2015 in Dhaka. This model has enabled the private sector to enter the sanitation market, which they previously viewed as high-risk and low-margin, and entrepreneurs can now deliver profitable waste collection services. Watch our new film on SWEEP here: https://youtu.be/mCI-yVtRV0Q The model addresses […]
The Partnership Re-Imagining the Rice Value Chain in Nigeria
The Value Chain Development Program (VCDP) is a partnership between the Federal Government of Nigeria, IFAD and Olam. It works to connect smallholder farmers to markets, land, credit and other agricultural support to improve productivity, the quality of their produce and their linkage with agro-processors for the buying of this produce. In turn, this supports […]
Seizing the Moment: Company Strategies to Address Sexual Harassment
The #MeToo movement has highlighted how pervasive sexual harassment is across sectors and countries. These issues affect, on a daily basis, millions of women workers producing the food, garments and electrical goods we buy in our shops. Gender and Work in Global Value Chains: Capturing the Gains? is recently published, drawing on years of research. […]
How Should Businesses Be Using Tech to Tackle Complex Issues Like Social Isolation?
When we think of social isolation it’s very easy to picture older, lonely people. But in reality, isolation affects people of all ages and backgrounds. More than one in five people in the UK feel lonely at least some of the time, making social isolation a major public health issue. The charity sector is rising […]
Working Towards a Digitally Inclusive and Connected South Africa
In 2018 the Pathways for Prosperity Commission was formed to address a pertinent and increasingly important question: What are the pathways to prosperity for the world’s poor in the coming digital age? In a global report, the Commission defined five potential pathways for inclusive growth in the digital age as well as a framework to help […]
Five Questions on Partnership with the Pollinate Group
1.What is Pollinate Group’s business model? Pollinate Group is a social enterprise with a mission to empower women as leaders of change to distribute products that improve health, save time and save money for the world’s most neglected communities. It was established in Bangalore in 2013, and later expanded to Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kanpur and Lucknow. […]
How Tech Investments Can Help Smallholders in India
Inequality in income and availability of work between rural and urban areas are large contributors to a country’s overall economic inequality. In India, agriculture still employs more than half of the workforce, but wages are low and with rising education levels many young people no longer aspire to take over the family smallholder farm. Instead, […]
The Most Important Job in the World
Teaching is the most important job in the world. The quality of any nation’s education cannot exceed the quality of its educators. Each teacher has the opportunity to shape and impact tens of thousands of young lives over the course of their career. It is not unusual to hear someone reflect on a favourite teacher […]
Time to Unstereotype? How Brands Are Reimagining Gender Norms Beyond the Screen
“These images are part of our past … but the world has evolved, and so has Skol. This doesn’t represent us anymore.” Now that’s something refreshing. Skol’s reimagined campaign employs female artists to tear down and reinterpret their typically sexist branding in a truly literal sense. We’ve seen for so long a familiar dialogue running […]
The Next Big Revolution: Off-Grid Solar Powering Mobile Phones
In 2011 I was in Uganda, in a village without power, near the border of Congo. There, I was surprised to see many locals with mobile phones, as there was no way they could charge them in the village at that time. There was mobile coverage though! Then I learned that they walked to the […]
Empowering Women in Toy Factories: Insights from Pilots in India
Ethical Toy Program and BSR collaborated on a women’s empowerment program that was piloted in three toy factories in India with a total population of 824 workers—including 198 women. The program, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, consisted of in-factory trainings on gender awareness, health, communications, and prevention of gender-based violence delivered to ‘Core […]
Rising to the Challenge: Donors Must Change their Funding Systems to Ensure that Businesses Achieve Social Impact
The current funding system threatens potentially life-changing innovations The world is hungry for new innovations that solve some of our biggest global challenges, such as food insecurity, financial illiteracy or a lack of healthcare and education. Social entrepreneurs in emerging markets are some of the biggest innovators in providing services and products for the world’s […]
Can We Really Take Big Business Seriously When it Comes to the SDGs?
Carol and the organization’s then Programme Director, Raja Jarrah, had hatched a plan and it was to be my fate, attending that July event, to end up playing the role of their main protagonist. Their plan was, and remains, a simple one: create a multi-functional team inside of CARE to work with businesses and markets […]
There is No ‘I’ in team: How Collaboration and Innovation are Enabling Inclusive Businesses to Achieve Greater Social Impact
The world of inclusive business isn’t any different. We’re seeing more and more inspiring collaborations that are achieving exponential results, demonstrating the value of partnerships, and the opportunities for innovation that these alliances allow. Take a look at the recent partnership between BCtA member Essilor and Chinese commerce giant AliBaba – together they’re providing access […]
Banking The Unbanked
‘Dreams are too expensive – We cannot afford to dream’ Khalida Bibi, a female home-based worker, expressed her despair during one of our customer surveys to assess the needs of lower- and middle-income individuals in rural Pakistan. Khalida is a 45-year-old, mother of three who runs a small home-based embroidery business, which provides an inconsistent […]
The Role Banks Can Play in Advancing Gender Equality
BFP: Credit Suisse is this year’s host of Business Fights Poverty’s flagship event at UNGA in New York – could you tell us a little more about why a bank like Credit Suisse supports these kinds of initiatives? PD: At Credit Suisse, we believe that it is in the interest of both our organization and […]
Inviting Men to Make a Difference: the #HeForShe movement
The case for gender equality is clear with estimates that £28 trillion could be added to the global economy if women participated equally. Yet according to recent reports, no country is expected to achieve full gender equality by 2030. Our ongoing Business Fights Poverty Challenge with AB InBev, CARE and Stanford University’s VMWare Women’s Leadership […]
The New ILO Violence and Harassment Convention: Signalling a Shift in Norms and Expectations
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. In June, representatives from governments, unions and employers’ organisations gathered in Geneva at the annual International Labour Conference to commemorate a century of tripartite engagement at this, the oldest of the United Nations agencies. For those of us working on gender-based violence, sexual harassment […]
Future-Gazing Business Models: How One Company Uses Impact Measurement to Tackle Youth Unemployment
Impact champions such as India’s Empower Pragati are turning the impact measurement field around. Rather than defining impact based on past activities, they are using ongoing business activities to guide how they chart the course for the future Unemployment is a country-wide issue in India, and the nation’s youth are hardest hit. A staggering one […]
Bringing the Lessons of Clean Sanitation Home
Banka BioLoo, which produces environmentally-friendly bio-toilets, looks to the communities where its products are present to measure how they’re improving lives by raising hygiene and sanitation standards in children’s schools Having access to clean toilets is not just a basic human right – it’s also a health necessity. But in India, nearly 50 million people[1] […]