From Settler Colonialism to Standing Rock: Hearing Native Voices for Peace
The water protectors of the Standing Rock Sioux captured public attention with their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Their actions are only the most recent in a long history of indigenous protests of resource extraction and treaty violations on Native American land. Often these struggles have involved indigenous music and Standing Rock was no exception. An […]
Empathy: A Global Imperative for Peace
This essay maintains that interplays between empathy, goodwill and other-regarding behaviors can make a huge difference in arguing one type of community into existence (one based on inclusivity, peace, respect, and universal human values) as opposed to arguing another kind of community into existence (one based on turmoil, meanness, wretchedness, genocide, and heaps of trouble). […]
How Music May Serve as a Nudge for More Ethical and Peaceful Business Behavior
Olivier Urbain’s presence in the special issue features as part of the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on Business, Music and Peace, and in the conferences that we held on topic is inspiring and validating. To have someone of Urbain’s stature willing to take time, not only for an appearance for a conference, but to engage […]
Working Together to Enhance the Effectiveness of Musicking in Peacebuilding Activities
Introduction Do you like music? What kind of music do you like? Have you ever wondered how much musical energy is produced on the planet at any given moment? Hundreds of millions of people are participating in musical events today, singing, playing, performing, dancing, clapping hands, stomping feet, listening with headphones while reading or walking […]
Advocating Together to Promote the Value of Overseas Development Assistance
Last year, when Congress was considering the FY 18 budget, the new US administration proposed significant funding cuts to US overseas development assistance, the State Department and the United Nations. If enacted, the cuts would have had a significant impact on US aid programmes supporting food and nutrition security, human rights and labour protections in […]
Care Work Matters: Advocating for Greater Recognition of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
In some parts of the world, women and girls currently spend as many as six hours each day on unpaid care and domestic work, which includes tasks like laundry, cooking, cleaning, collecting water and caring for dependants. Despite its vital contribution to families and communities, unpaid care and domestic work often goes un-recognised. It affects […]
Advocating Together for the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights
Long gone are the days when companies and NGOS could barely talk to each other. NGO-private sector partnerships are now the order of the day, and governments increasingly hope that companies will help in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from poverty reduction to climate change. But joint advocacy between companies and NGOs is still […]
Advocating Together for Universal Health Coverage
In a world where at least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services, achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) – the idea that everybody in the world should be able to access the healthcare they need without fear of financial hardship – has become a critical building block for Save the Children and […]
The Business Case for a Gender Audit
An increasing number of businesses have committed to create more diverse, gender-balanced, inclusive workplaces – recognizing that it is not only the right thing to do, but also makes business sense. This recognition of the value of gender equality is progress in itself – but pursuing change in this area is not simple, particularly for […]
Joint Civil Society – Business Advocacy Is Emerging as a Powerful Tool to Drive Policy Change in Support of the SDGs
Nearly three years after formally adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is increasingly clear that governments face significant challenges that could undermine progress. These include fiscal constraints, lack of political will, institutional failures and state fragility. Moreover, governments are always under pressure to deliver short-term results, but many of the complex systemic challenges being […]
Why We Must Go Beyond Economics In The Discourse on Empowerment of Women
Last week, Ivanka Trump attended the Summit of the Americas in Peru and announced a new women’s economic empowerment initiative. This builds on the Women’s Entrepreneurial Finance Initiative, or We-Fi, she launched last year, which aims to encourage private investment and funding to women-owned companies and is backed by the World Bank. Are these kinds of initiatives enough to transform the […]
Helping Refugees Move From Crisis To Resilience and Self-Reliance
It is estimated that, on average, a refugee spends over a decade in exile. This means that many refugee children, who make up more than half the world’s refugees, will spend most of their childhood in exile, jeopardizing their education and access to future economic opportunities. For millions of refugee adults, decades of displacement have […]
Mapping Lives with Refugees
Do you decide to try and reach Europe by any means necessary? So begins the Guardian’s online interactive, “The Refugee Challenge.” You play as a widowed mother of two who must escape the airstrikes in Syria and make your way to Europe, where you can attain asylum. While the victories and setbacks you encounter mimic choose-your-own-adventure novels, the […]
How Can Companies Develop Systems That Drive Commercial Innovation With Social Impact?
As a community of individuals convinced of the potential for business to have a positive impact on people and planet, we are very encouraged to see a growing number of inspiring corporate initiatives that put social impact at the heart of commercial innovation. Driven by a growing band of ‘intrapreneurs’ – social entrepreneurs working inside […]
Virtual Exchange: Students Collaborate to Tackle Social Enterprise Challenges in the Middle East
“I’ve never worked with people from so far away. M²GATE gave me the opportunity to work with people from another culture. I enjoyed it a lot,” said Ryan Berg, a freshman at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan at the final session of Cohort 1 of the M²GATE program. M²GATE is […]
How Can Business Help Strengthen Provision of High Quality, Low Cost Education for the Poor?
The expansion of choices available to low-income families seeking primary education for their children has been one of the striking changes seen along the uneven path towards quality Education for all. The abolition of tuition fees in government schools in many countries over the past twenty years has often been accompanied by overcrowded classrooms and […]
Virtual Reality Training in Southern Africa
Every fan of horror movies knows that a person wielding a chainsaw can cause some serious damage. The tool is rated as one of the most dangerous available; one wrong move and its user could lose a limb. In Southern Africa, forestry students don’t have to worry about that anymore. They are now using a […]
A Nigérien Entrepreneur Finds Her Niche in Camel Milk
Last month, I travelled to Niamey, Niger’s capital, where MCC Country Team Lead for Niger Kristin Penn and our Nigérien partners are hard at work on MCC’s $437 million compact to improve access to water for agriculture and livestock and expand access to markets. Around 80 percent of Niger’s population relies on the agricultural sector for its […]
Female Employees Fast Tracked From Line Workers to Supervisors
The readymade garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh is the greatest contributor to female employment in Bangladesh; over 3.2 million of its employees live at the bottom of the economic pyramid (defined as people with less than US$10 per day in purchasing power in 2015 US dollars). Recognising this, at DBL Group we have focused on […]
A New Age of Startups: How Tunisia’s Millennial Entrepreneurs Are Boosting the Economy
Like graduates all over the world, Tunisians leave university and want to find a job. Unlike many others, they can’t. The country’s unemployment rate hovers at around 40%, with one third being university graduates. Traditional jobs are few and far between. This situation has been leading many young people to turn to entrepreneurship as a […]