Fairtrade Together: COVID-19 Briefing
Fairtrade is gathering updates from around the world about how COVID-19 is affecting producer organizations, family farmers, and workers. The flower market in Africa, especially Kenya, is facing unprecedented challenges due to the inability to ship their goods to Europe via commercial airlines, which have stopped their routes. As a result, workers — whose livelihoods […]
Cometh the hour, Cometh the Call for Collaborative Action Against COVID-19
Whilst the safety of employees, customers and business partners is paramount, the strength of these relationships will be exposed. Leadership will be tested and commitment to individual and business’ values will be scrutinised. Are the businesses well espoused values just platitudes on the board room wall and the front cover of the annual report, or […]
COVID-19 and the Poor: Inclusive Business has solutions, but needs radical collaboration
When you are poor, social distancing is not an option, and hygiene and health services are often not available. When you live in a slum, you have to go out to make money, you take a mini-bus to work, you go to crowded market for groceries, and to the pump for water. The current pandemic […]
Cohabiting with a Virus: We Must Learn to Live Life on Land More Sustainably
On Saturday 21 March, the world celebrated the UN’s International Day of Forests. But instead of stepping out into nature or joining one of the many activities planned to recognise this day, many of us are – voluntarily or not – staying put in our homes, amid the bleak global fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. […]
How Business Can Protect Our Health Systems
We are seeing a huge amount of resource mobilisation from governments and donors around the world to fund COVID-19 research and development of new treatments, technologies, vaccines and diagnostics. To reflect this demand we are seeing businesses step up to support efforts such as a collaboration between researchers and doctors at UCL with the Mercedes […]
Protecting the Most Vulnerable: A Business Response Framework
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is creating the worst humanitarian and economic crisis in a generation, threatening the lives, livelihoods and learning of people around the world. Government leadership is crucial, but companies and civil society organizations also have a vital role in working together to respond to the immediate crisis and develop plans for […]
How the Pandemic Will Change the World of Work Forever
The immediate issue is, of course, the impact on people’s health and wellbeing, and that needs to be everyone’s priority. Beyond the immediate crisis, it is difficult to predict how quickly the global economy will recover from this situation and how soon we will be able to return to some kind of normality. However, that […]
Caring for the Carers: How Employers Can Help.
For many of us, caring for an elderly parent or a disabled child or sibling, will be one of – maybe the – most important thing we do. Taking care of a loved one, is part of what it is to be human. While unpaid caring can be rewarding, it can have significant costs for […]
How to Change the World While in Confinement
This is day 11 of full confinement and France is in complete lockdown. So are many other countries. The impact of this pandemic will go much beyond the obvious, have countless repercussions, many of which we cannot yet foresee. Beyond the tragedies we know about, there may be a more silent impact of this pandemic: […]
Shaping a Sustainable Post COVID World: 5 Lessons for Business
Today we have the acute Herculean task to protect the lives of 100,000s, the health of millions and the livelihoods of billions. Nothing should detract us from winning this war. But as we fight it we should seize the chance too to create a new, more resilient, healthy, equal society that lives in equilibrium with […]
Armenian Apparel Manufacturer Starts Producing Masks to Help Fight Coronavirus
The masks are made from anti-bacterial melt-blown polypropylene, a specialized medical-grade textile that allows air to pass through while filtering out dangerous particles. TOSP is currently manufacturing around 2,000 masks a day. Armenia instituted a one-month state of emergency on March 16, following a sharp increase in cases of Covid-19. All educational institutions have been shut […]
Business and Workers Unite in Call for International Cooperation on COVID-19
ICC and the ITUC have joined forces in a call for bold coordinated action that leaves no one behind in response to the COVID-19. In time for the for the G20 leaders summit, the world’s business and workers’ organisations have joined forces to issue an open letter calling on political leaders to commit to bold coordinated […]
Precarious and Informal Work Exacerbates Spread of Coronavirus
The scarcity of coronavirus test kits means that most people who fall ill will not get tested until they have serious health problems that require hospitalisation. This is a perfect storm for the two billion people globally employed in the informal economy: you are unsure whether you have the virus; you may not be at […]
How Will COVID-19 Affect Women and Girls in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?
The Economic Impact of COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Wenham, Smith, and Morgan discuss gendered impacts in their article, “COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak,” in the Lancet. Women appear to be less likely to die from COVID-19: “Emerging evidence suggests that more men than women are dying, potentially due to sex-based immunological […]
Business Fights Poverty Briefing, with McKinsey & Co and UNDP: How can business support the most vulnerable in value chains and communities in the face of COVID-19?
On 11th March 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic. This is first and foremost a human tragedy. At time of writing, there are more than 332,930 cases and 14,510 people have lost their lives. COVID-19 is also having a growing and very significant impact on the […]
Business, Disease and Global Health: Taking collective action on workplace health to create a healthier future
In crises, swift action is critical. Yet, business leaders should also use this time to rethink the “old normal” for workplace health, particularly for poorer workers in their global supply chains. The “old normal” views workplace health through narrow lens of occupational safety. Most manufacturing suppliers in lower-income countries consider their health and safety staff […]
Responsible Businesses Step Forward – Governments Can’t Fight this Virus Alone
As the limits on our go-to crisis-management tools become clear, it is increasingly apparent that we need the private sector to join the coronavirus front line. There’s a reason the White House has asked Walmart and others to help with drive-thru testing and Downing Street wants manufacturers to shift production lines to building ventilators. Governments, […]
3BL Media Opens CSRwire for Free Social Impact Communications Around COVID-19
Meanwhile, the guidelines that public health officials have urged all of us to follow have been a disruption to all organizations, including the world’s largest corporations and NGOs taking on some of the most daunting challenges as each of us does our part to flatten the curve. To that end, 3BL Media, realizes that many organizations have […]
Three Priorities for Business on the Coronavirus
On 11th March 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic. At time of writing, there are more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. It is likely that many more countries will be affected, with particularly devastating impacts for countries with […]
Paul Polman Calls for Ambitious Collaboration to Tackle COVID-19
