Sustainable Intensification: Reframing the Future of African Agriculture
Global discussions on agriculture policy can be a complex maze for organisations to navigate with emphasis shifting between a range of development priorities – from greater productivity and improved market access to climate change mitigation/adaptation and protection of land, air, water and biodiversity resources. Is there a system which helps us to find the synergies […]
The Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles – Paving the way for Responsible Business in Nigeria
Entering Lagos – a city of 7 million and the second fastest growing city in Africa – is quite an experience. One is immediately stunned by the chaotic atmosphere, the obvious energy that can only be found in a booming African economy and the feeling that opportunities lie in every corner. For an outsider visiting […]
Dan Pallotta: Business Can’t Solve the World’s Problems — But Capitalism Can
Business and capitalism get conflated — in our media, our language and in our thinking. They are not the same thing. One is a sector, the other a methodology. By inextricably linking the two, we confine the practice of real, turbo-charged capitalism to business, and we dangerously limit the capacity of non-business organizations to innovate, […]
Toward an Ecosystem for Early-Stage Incubation of Social Enterprises in East Africa
This past December, 55 participants gathered in Nairobi for a workshop on early-stage incubation of social enterprises in East Africa. The workshop was hosted by ANDE, CARE, The Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and the Acumen Fund and facilitated by Open Capital Advisors. The workshop was designed to be a forum that would allow participants to develop […]
Fuelling Botswana’s flourishing entrepreneur scene
There is a strong culture of entrepreneurship in Botswana, a country that stands as one of Africa’s notable economic development success stories over the past two decades. But despite the country’s relative success, unemployment remains a major issue; hence job creation and economic diversification form a central theme for all key stakeholders, including public, private […]
Priceless: Volunteers Bring Financial Literacy to the Masses
To help combat this critical social gap, corporate philanthropy initiatives of all shapes and sizes have been created. Leading companies are working to empower people across the country (and world, in some instances) by putting their core financial literacy competencies to work. For example, PwC is mobilizing its most important asset — its 35,000 people […]
What do you think about DFID's decision to increase its focus on growth and investment?
What do you think about DFID’s decision to increase its focus on growth and investment?
Igniting a culture of entrepreneurship in South Africa
“Often businesses are not focused on the future – they think small and I encourage them to dream big,” says Olga Lutz. Dignified and determined, Lutz knows the power of big thinking. Despite her modest roots in Zwelihle township outside Hermanus in South Africa, she has developed a small consulting business and skills centre – […]
The Power of Music
On 6 March, Business Fights Poverty will be helping make a little history, but not of the sort you would probably imagine. For the first time, house music will be coming to the UK’s House of Commons, with headline act Fat Boy Slim (aka Norman Cook). According to Fat Boy Slim, “I’ve played some exciting […]
Empowering women through skills development in Tanzania’s oil and gas industry
BG Group entered Tanzania in 2010 with a genuine commitment to making a positive contribution to the lives of the Tanzanian people as much as to the country’s economy. As a world leader in natural gas with activities in more than 20 countries, we understand the importance of investing in sustainable development to ensure the […]
Cocoa Life- the project empowering women in Ghana’s cocoa growing communities
Cocoa has been grown in Ghana for over one hundred years and it is the second export crop for my country after gold. However we found that the supply of cocoa was dwindling because of many challenges. Young people were not getting involved in cocoa farming leaving such labour-intensive farming like cocoa farming in the […]
Barbara Crowther: Making international supply chains work for smallholder farmers
Fairtrade Foundation In the wake of recent food scandals, the need to increase focus on building more transparent and accountable food supply chains has once again been in the spotlight. Seeking greater transparency between trading partners, from consumer to retailer to small farmer organisations will also be one of the themes under discussion at a […]
Eric Clayton: The League of Intrapreneurs United
A new force for entrepreneurship is stirring within established corporations: the social intrapreneur. They help businesses innovate from within by fixing their sights on social change as pioneers, while at the same time keeping their hands on the steering wheel as pragmatic leaders. Like social entrepreneurs, social intrapreneurs seek to make a positive impact in […]
Creating Jobs through Youth entrepreneurship in Côte d’Ivoire
Côte d’Ivoire, like many countries all over the world, is facing the difficult issue of how to create jobs for the country’s young population. Already in 2008, Côte d’Ivoire had more than four million unemployed youth (the total population is estimated to be 21 million). At that time, the unemployment rate was 24.2% among 15-24 […]
Interview with Lourenço Bustani: the New Way of Doing Business
“Brands have tremendous difficulty understanding people as people,” according to Lourenço Bustani. He is pointing to the big challenge facing businesses nowadays as they try to deal with people’s needs in a changing economy. Bustani is a Brazilian innovator who decided to show the private market that it is possible to be prosperous without abdicating […]
Interview with Richard Wiltshire: From Idea to Implementation
“You can do an amazing amount of good, working with some of the largest companies in the world,” says Richard Wiltshire, senior manager at Accenture. As a social intrapreneur, Wiltshire believes being a corporate citizen is an unspoken commitment of every employee. Whether they start an effort on their own or join one such as […]
Interview with Dymphna Van der Lans: The Courage to Lead
When Dymphna Van der Lans was asked to set up a new alternative energy business for BP in emerging markets, she embraced the unique challenges and risks of working within an organizational structure, yet pushing into new territory, that are part of leading an intrapreneurial initiative. Here, she offers some key insights from her journey […]
Interview with Jillene Connors Belopolsky: The Bigger “Whole” in Business
What if 1 + 1 could somehow equal 3? For social intrapreneurs working for social or environmental welfare from within a large business, there’s a chance it can. In order to create a whole that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, social intrapreneurs must be savvy. They must not only develop solutions to pressing […]
Development in Transition
This morning the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, gave a major speech on international development, setting out her priorities for the Department for International Development (DFID). The event was hosted by ONE Campaign UK. Below is a transcript of the speech: I’ve been privileged to head up DFID now as Secretary […]