Ivanka Trump Could Shape African Women’s Entrepreneurship
After decades of working with women entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa, I am hopeful that Ivanka Trump’s initiative will deliver change, provided the interventions are designed for lasting results. To effectively meet the program’s ambitious goal of supporting 50 million women in developing countries by 2025, we will need more than the usual generic, short-term approaches […]
Business Urge for a Robust New Global Law to End Violence and Harassment at Work
30 leading business networks and individual brands are calling for negotiators to deliver a new international law to end violence and harassment in the workplace that genuinely benefits business and employees world-wide. A statement, initiated by the NGO CARE, and supported by Business Fights Poverty, The B Team, BSR and individual brands Unilever, Marks & […]
Plan for the Future
This requires having a clear Purpose, which is authentic and inspiring, explains why the business exists and how it creates value for itself and for society. It is about having a comprehensive Plan, which minimises negative social, environmental and economic impacts, maximises positive impacts and covers all aspects of the business and extends into the […]
Sweet Dreams: Sweet Story
Readers of Business Fights Poverty have been exposed to the arguments for how business might contribute to peace. They have also seen examples of how music can do the same. Many studies have shown corollaries of how gender equity promotes peace. If you want a film that shows all three of these factors in action, […]
Corporate/ Impact Enterprise Partnerships – Part 2 – Now for the Hard Part
Last time, I talked about the considerable potential for partnerships between corporates and impact enterprises. In this blog, I’ll focus on the undoubted challenges. Again, I’m building on several published sources, my own experience, and conversations with entrepreneurs, corporate staff and investors. In the opening lines of Anna Karenina (“Happy families are all alike; every […]
Most Brands’ Support Of Causes Is Not Breaking Through To Gen Z
Despite an influx of consumer brands more publicly supporting social cause platforms, most efforts are not resonating with Gen Z, according to a new study released Wednesday from DoSomething Strategic, the social impact consulting arm of DoSomething.org that helps brands engage young people around their purpose. Cause is Working, Your Marketing Isn’t: A Report on Brands Taking Stands 2019 found […]
To Boldly Go Where We’ve Not Been Before Doesn’t Need to be a Leap of Faith
Sometimes the future is not hard to predict – it’s totally logical. Widely cited, Star Trek’s Chief of Logic (COL), Spock nailed it when he said that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” If we are bold and if we act now to change our organisations and our systems we […]
Business as Usual – Or Business with Purpose?
While the debate on business’ social and environmental impacts (both positive and negative) is not new, when the CEO of Blackrock, one of the world’s largest investors, and the head of Oxfam International are both talking about the potential for business to help achieve inclusive and sustainable development, it feels like we’re at a tipping […]
Corporate / Impact Enterprise Partnerships: Still Hard, Still Worth It.
I’ve often worked at the intersection of multinational corporations (MNCs) and smaller, BOP-focused ‘impact enterprises’, some of them led by the most extraordinary entrepreneurs on the planet. Much of the help corporates offer them is time bound investment or technical support to strengthen their businesses. From time to time, though, the opportunity presents itself for […]
Business Fights Poverty At the Movies
Over the last twenty years, my research has focused on the ways in which business can foster peace. This work isn’t really about how trade and economic development can foster peace, but how the actions of the structures that implement trade and economic development – businesses – can do so. In addition to writing four […]
What Role Can Business Play To Tackle Gender-Based Violence? Experts Share Practical Learnings and Experiences
As part of our current Business Fights Poverty Challenge, What Role Can Business Play to Tackle Gender-Based Violence, we hosted an Online Discussion. This brought together a panel of experts from around the world to share their insights and experience. Whether you are from an organisation taking your first steps in trying to understand how […]
How Can We Improve the Response to Forced Displacement? An Opportunity to Partner with Save the Children
Save the Children’s Migration and Displacement Initiative (MDI) recently launched its Predictive Displacement Tool – a prototype model to support humanitarian actors in anticipating the onset of a displacement crisis and understanding how it will unfold over time. The current figures on displacement are alarming, with 2018 numbers demonstrating that: More than 68 million people, […]
We Need a Reskilling Revolution. Here’s How to Make it Happen
As the world faces the transformative economic, social and environmental challenges of Globalization 4.0, it has never been more important to invest in people. Valuing human capital not only serves to equip individuals with the knowledge and skills to respond to systemic shifts, it also empowers them to take part in creating a more equal, inclusive and […]
Fashion has a Huge Waste Problem. Here’s How it Can Change
The biggest trends in fashion today are ones no one wants to be seen in. They include vastly increased clothing production and declining use, massive levels of waste and more greenhouse gas emissions than international shipping and flights combined. In the last 15 years the industry has doubled production, while the time clothing is worn […]
The Purpose Statement: Necessary, but Insufficient
Many organisations, big and small, put a lot of work into discovering their Purpose and crafting their Purpose Statement. They’re also defining or refining their Values, as a star chart to guide the positive evolution of their culture. Done thoroughly and inclusively, this is critically important work. But my question is: will a well-crafted Purpose Statement and […]
Why Addressing Gender-Based Violence is an Imperative for Business Today
As part of our latest Challenge project, we are asking our network, and beyond, to contribute important insight into how businesses are, can or should be tackling gender-based violence – whether in the workplace, or supporting employees who are victims and survivors of domestic violence. Your insights will help in the creation of a toolkit, […]
CEO Agenda 2019: An Ambitious Vision Lacking Commitment or Detail
The CEO Agenda 2019 was launched at DAVOS by a number of leading fashion brands, with support from Global Fashion Agenda. It’s good to see major brands trying to tackle the ethical and environmental challenges facing the sector – and society more broadly – but the experience of CARE and our partners in civil society and the […]
What She Makes: The True Price of Fashion
The Australian fashion industry was worth almost $23.5 billion in 2018 — a staggering amount. But a system of entrenched exploitation and the widespread payment of poverty wages is denying the workers making our clothes the opportunity for decent lives. Chameli, her husband and their three daughters live in a stuffy and cramped single room […]
Cash Transfers and Gender Equality
At this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, IDS researchers highlighted the limitations of social protection policies such as cash transfers in relation to improving the lives of women across the world. Integrating social protection policies with public services and infrastructure They argued that social protection policies can only be truly effective […]
Mind the Gap & Fix the Mix: Gender Equality in Private Equity
With more than $3 trillion in assets under management—nearly $800 billion of which is allocated to emerging markets—private equity can be a powerful source of financing, especially for innovative businesses that cannot access bank loans or capital markets. Investors and funds with stakes in these privately owned companies not only help them expand, they also […]