The Niger Delta Partnership Initiative: Corporate Social Enterprise in Action
All too often corporate social responsibility has, over the years, meant occasional grants and handouts to people in need, with little regard to achieving sustainable development in the long run. Things are changing. As governments struggle with tight budgets, and business leaders discover the dangers of operating in volatile regions of the world where residents […]
Pearson helping UAE to develop their school leaders
30 principals, vice principals and teachers from the UAE arrive in the UK tomorrow as part of a unique development programme run by Pearson. The School Leadership Programme, which is sponsored by the UAE Ministry of Education, hopes to use global training opportunities to improve the quality of teaching skills to international levels, as well […]
Vote for Gamechanging Business Models in Health
Vote to help transform health systems in markets around the world! Earlier this year, Ashoka Changemakers and Boehringer Ingelheim launched Transforming Health Systems: Gamechanging Business Models, a competition in search of innovative business models that are solving systemic health problems in different markets around the world. An expert panel of judges has selected five finalists […]
Scaling Proven Mobile Maternal Health e-Vouchers in Western Kenya
Changamka Microhealth Ltd is making healthcare delivery more cost-effective and accessible in Kenya by using mobile phones and mobile money. It is piloting a program that helps low-income, expectant mothers get electronic maternal health vouchers that they can present on their mobile phones at health facilities. The vouchers qualify mothers for antenatal, maternity, and post-natal […]
Health Kiosks for Kenya Slums – Taking Community Healthcare to Scale
Access Afya is bringing a chain of “ultra-mini-clinics” to slums in Kenya. The mini-clinics are neighborhood kiosks staffed with qualified medical professionals and equipped with the latest health technologies and diagnostics. Access Afya’s pilot mini-clinic is designed to encourage patients to seek timely preventative care and early diagnosis of illness because the clinics are more […]
Rice production in Cambodia: the poor farmer’s perspective
Rice farming in Cambodia can be a tough and uncertain business. Rainfall is highly erratic, both drought and floods being regular occurrences, land is often infertile or under-nourished and investment in new farming systems and technology is minimal. Yet approximately 60% of the Cambodian population rely on agriculture (mainly rice production) for their livelihoods and […]
MeraDoctor: Reaching Rural Households with Trusted Health Advice
MeraDoctor is providing reliable health advice over the phone in rural India, where licensed doctors are scarce. It has been a life-saving health intervention for many patients who have found that treatments prescribed by unqualified health agents—called “quacks” in India—are ineffectual, or even harmful. For example, one customer, a 26-year-old woman who was eight months […]
SMEs: The Next Frontier in Financial Inclusion
How can we contribute to meaningful increases in emerging market GDP and jobs without getting in the way? By investing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Microfinance Information Exchange reports that SMEs make up over 60% of national GDP and account for over 70% of total employment in emerging market nations. SMEs are major […]
Registries for ALL – Redesigning Patient-Researcher Relationships with an Open-Source Database
Registries for ALL (Reg4ALL) is part of a movement to transform the relationships between health data, patients, and researchers. As “the world’s first ever participant-controlled, cross-disease registry for health and disease data,” the Reg4ALL platform enables patients to share their health data and connect with researchers who need participants for clinical trials. The platform is […]
Improving Access to Oral Healthcare: A Robust Business Model for a Self-Sustaining Nonprofit
Sarrell Dental is arguably the only highly successful, self-sustaining non-profit dental practice in the nation. It has accomplished what many in the U.S. health industry had thought impossible—providing dental care to children covered by Medicaid, while running a top-notch, growing business and lowering the cost of care to the government. Sarrell Dental works in the […]
Business Incubation in Ghana
Mabel Simpson is the creative director of her own design house, mSimps. It’s a prestigious job for a young woman in Ghana. “At mSimps we make hand-made hand bags, clutch purses, men’s slippers, laptop sleeves,” she says proudly. “All mSimps bags are one-offs. Two people do not own the same bag. Our designs are inspired […]
A WaterFirst Health Model – Delivering Healthcare in Emerging Markets
HealthPoint Services’ “WaterFirst” sells inexpensive, clean water to prevent water-borne illnesses in remote communities in India. But villagers who visit HealthPoint units to buy water get a lot more: they can also purchase health commodities like sanitary pads, condoms, and nutritional supplements for pregnant women. Villagers can also access health services like vaccinations and diagnostic […]
GSK & Save the Children Partnership: From Ambition to Action
The High Level Panel on the post-2015 development framework submitted its report yesterday (Thursday 30 May), giving the first indications of the settlement that will replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire two years from now. The debate has featured discussions on everything from plankton abundance to WiFi access, but one issue that stands […]
Supporting Small Shopkeepers in El Salvador
One way in which economic and social progress can be advanced in Latin America is through modernising and strengthening small and micro enterprises across the region. Small and micro businesses are critical to economic growth; they play an entrepreneurial role in meeting the needs of local consumers and larger businesses, drive improvements in innovation and […]
Gyapa Stoves project cuts a record amount of carbon and improves lives
This week, the Gyapa Stoves project, run by Relief International, announced it had cut a record amount of carbon emissions. ClimateCare has long advocated integrated Climate and Development projects like this, designed from the outset to protect the environment and improve people’s lives. Since 2007, nearly half a million Gyapa™ stoves have been sold, impacting […]
Social Innovation in South Africa
Enterprise development is at the core of SAB’s long term sustainability strategy, helping create jobs and develop entrepreneurial skills in the communities in which we operate. Encouraging enterprise development is a key sustainable development priority and well integrated into our day-to-day business. Depending on the stage that the entrepreneur’s business idea or Project is at, […]
Wheels for Fortune
It is difficult for people with disabilities to access mobility equipment in remote areas of Africa. Statistics from the UN Development Programme show that less than 1 percent of the need for wheelchairs in developing countries can be met by the limited local production, and those wheelchairs that are available are often unsuitable for the […]
Supporting South Africa’s entrepreneurs every step of the way
Lere Mgayiya founded Lere’s Shoe Shine Experience (http://www.shoeshine.co.za/) in 2003 to provide shoeshine services to passengers and staff at airports around South Africa. There was a glaring gap in the market for the traditional and enduringly popular service, but to spot it showed great entrepreneurial panache, panache and get-go that is unusual in a young […]
Tap the Future: Boosting America’s Disadvantaged Entrepreneurs
For 13 years, MillerCoors invested more than $1.9 million in the businesses and dreams of entrepreneurs through its MillerCoors Urban Entrepreneurs Series business competition, also known as MUES. In the US only 15.4% of business are Black- or Hispanic-owned. The MUES programme was designed to empower minority businesses. Now, Miller Lite will launch a new […]
Lendwithcare in Cambodia – How a growing economy impacts on the poor
The last time I visited Cambodia was in 2005 and as I walked out into the humid night air and towards Phnom Penh’s visibly transforming skyline, I was eager to find out how Cambodia had changed since my last visit. This time I was not visiting as a tourist but on behalf of the organisation […]