Tag: challenges

New Report: Unlocking Investment to Deliver the SDGs in Challenging Places

  This report, launched today, is the main output of Business Fights Poverty’s Investing for Impact Challenge. We are hosting a roundtable event with contributors, partners and other interested stakeholders at BFP’s event in New York to mark the occasion and discuss the central themes of the report. The report asks the question: “How can […]

Lessons in Corporate Social Innovation

Interview withJustin DeKoszmovszky, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer, INBONIS Justin, first of all, please introduce yourself to the Business Fights Poverty community. I work at the intersection of strategy, sustainability and innovation. I started my career as a strategy consultant, and as time went by, I began looking for ways to apply those skills to […]

Empowering Women in the Economy – Take-aways and Next Steps

CARE was delighted to host yesterday’s event to a full house of business leaders, global experts, and civil society actors to talk about how the private sector can empower women in the economy, including by implementing the UN High Level Panel (HLP) on Women’s Economic Empowerment’s new recommendations. Thank you to all the panellists and […]

Empower a Woman and a Whole Cocoa Community will Thrive

Do you know where chocolate comes from? Do you wonder who produced the cocoa in your chocolate and under what circumstances? Do you care if the chocolate you buy is sourced in a responsible way, with equal access and opportunity for women? Without cocoa there is no chocolate, and without the next generation of cocoa […]

Supporting Corporate Social Innovation to Bring Mobile Services to Smallholder Farmers

Interview with Tegan Palmer, Business Intelligence Manager, mAgri program, GSMA. Q: Tegan, you are the Business Intelligence Manager at the mAgri program at GSMA. What does the mAgri program do? A: We catalyze scalable, commercial mobile services that improve the productivity and incomes of smallholder farmers and benefit the agriculture sector in emerging markets. We […]

An ILO Convention on Gender Based Violence in the Workplace

Why businesses should support the proposed ILO Convention on Ending violence and harassment against women and men in the world of work The ILO is now in a process of considering whether to establish a new instrument or instruments on “Ending violence and harassment against women and men in the world of work”. This is […]

Translating the UN High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment into Action

Business Fights Poverty welcomed the creation early last year of the UN High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment. Not surprisingly, women’s empowerment is an issue of great importance to many members of the Business Fights Poverty community. In support of the Panel’s work we crafted a Challenge on Women’s Economic Empowerment, in partnership with […]

A New Way of Working with SMEs to Tackle the Refugee Crisis

By Kathryn Taetzsch, Senior Relief Coordinator & Private Sector Engagement Lead, Global Humanitarian Operations, World Vision International The scope of the challenge… a people-centered approach with “new actors” Out of about 65.3 Mio people who have been forcibly displaced, 21.3 Mio refugees worldwide require humanitarian assistance in recurrent or protracted crises. The international community is […]

Enabling Youth Entrepreneurship in West Africa

An Interview with Isaac Aggrey, CEO, African Social Entrepreneurs Network BFP: First of all, please introduce yourself to the Business Fights Poverty community. I am passionate about providing effective financial solutions to benefit local entrepreneurs, social impact investors, and most importantly, people at all levels of society, especially women entrepreneurs. I am the CEO of […]

Scaling Inclusive Business Models at the Nexus of Poverty and Environment

Scaling Inclusive Business Models at the Nexus of Poverty And Environment: Case Studies from the Philippines To date, many actors involved in poverty alleviation and environmental protection have operated in silos. Although both sectors follow ecosystem approaches, in the first, impact is seen as positive and desirable, and in the latter, impact is seen as […]

Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals into Business

The general consensus is that the only way to meet the scale of the ambition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to bridge the estimated funding gap of $2.5 trillion per year is to fully mobilise business investment, innovation and expertise. For companies, there are good reasons to engage with the SDGs. There are […]

Bridging the Gap – Supporting Youth Employability

By Hester le Roux, Challenge Director, Business Fights Poverty We are pleased to announce the launch of a new guide to business support for youth skills development. “Bridging the Gap: Supporting Youth Employability” was produced as part of the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on Youth Employability, which is supported by Anglo American, Barclays, BRAC, Citi, […]

Contributing to the SDGs through Advocacy Partnerships

The contribution of business to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is often viewed through the lens of core business, social investment, and public advocacy and policy engagement, a framework first introduced by Jane Nelson[1]. Whilst core business and social investment have received much attention over the years, there has been little focus on the positive […]

Empowering Smallholder Farmers to Improve their Incomes

By David Norman, Challenge Director, Business Fights Poverty Millions of smallholders live in poverty, unable to meet basic needs. Smallholder farmers need to improve their incomes and competitiveness if they are to achieve and sustain a decent standard of living, reinvest in their farms, and continue to supply a sustainable crop to multinational companies. The […]

Using Technical Assistance to Build Impactful Businesses

In late 2012, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) launched the Impact Programme, an initiative aimed at developing new ways to foster the market for impact investment in Africa and South Asia. There are two investment vehicles under the programme: the Impact Fund (IF) and the Impact Accelerator (IA). The Impact Programme’s Technical Assistance […]

Unlocking Private Sector Investment to Deliver the SDGs in Challenging Places

There is an estimated $2.5 trillion financing gap needed to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Should the gap not be filled, it is possible that we will fail in the attempt to realise the global ambition to “end poverty and hunger, and achieve sustainable development”. The debate around the most effective models for […]

For Sustainable Solutions to the Refugee Crisis, Business will be Key

Anyone who follows the news is well aware that we are in the midst of a global refugee crisis of massive proportions. What may be less apparent from the coverage is that this crisis is long-term in nature. According to the UN Refugee Agency, by the end of 2015, there were 21.3 million refugees around […]

Emerging Trends in Digital Delivery of Agri-finance

This is the first in a series of three blogs on the role of technology in the rural finance projects supported by The MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity (FRP). In this first blog, we explore the major trends in digital delivery that the Fund is seeing in its portfolio. In the second blog, we […]

Building Know-How for Corporate Social Innovation

There are growth opportunities outside its traditional markets. It needs to stay ahead of potentially disruptive technological changes. It has made high-profile commitments on complex sustainability issues. It wants to engage, retain, and develop future leaders by tapping into the power of purpose at work. For reasons like these, a growing number of companies are […]