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 […]
Five Years after Rana Plaza, We Still Must Do More to Empower Women Workers in Bangladesh
Five years ago, a building housing a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 people. The deadliest structural failure in modern human history, the Rana Plaza tragedy turned the eyes of the world to Bangladesh and sparked a conversation about compliance and building safety. Since then, brands and the development community have come to […]
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 […]
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 […]
Success on Every Corner: How Mom-and-Pop Shops Can Drive Growth in Africa
Peter Kimeu had a job working in hotels around Nairobi, Kenya, but his wages weren’t enough to support his family. After looking for an opportunity to improve his earnings, he decided to use his savings to open a duka—a small, neighborhood store selling basic consumer goods. The only problem was that Peter had never run […]
4 Tips for Effective and Dynamic Groups
Call them networks, working groups or knowledge hubs, communities of practice have been flourishing in the international development sector for some time now. Whether you want to influence decision makers, share best practices or connect with professionals within or beyond the sector, communities can help you strengthen your organisation’s outreach and knowledge. And today, thanks […]
Affordability – Beyond the Buzzword
Affordability is at the core of much of our work as impact investors – from affordable electricity to housing, food, healthcare, education and many more. Yet ask someone to define what it means, and you may be met with little more than a blank stare. We recently conducted a straw poll of 20 impact investment […]
Time to Re-energise the INGO Model Through Structural Innovation
The international NGO sector faces significant disruption to its business models in the next decade. As IARAN has noted, INGOs must think deeply about what kind of organisation they want to be in 2030 if they are to keep pace with shifts in demography, technology, climate, geopolitics and much else besides. For UK-based INGOs, such […]
Making the Most of Interesting Times – and Achieving the Global Goals
As Robert Kennedy remarked in 1966, “Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.” For many of us, the first months of 2018 will go down in history as a similarly interesting […]
5 Steps to Build Trust in Your Organisation
By Rupert Younger, Director, Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation We have been witnessing a collapse in trust in businesses, the media and governments for a number of years now. But Edelman’s recent 2017 global survey shows that trust in NGOs is also in decline. This matters. Trust underpins all NGOs’ interactions, and without it their work costs […]
WASH: Solving the Global Sanitation Crisis
As a global crisis that affects over two billion people, water sanitation has turned into the first and primary concern of many of the world’s leading organizations. In fact, the CDC considers water sanitation an essential problem that needs to be solved by the end of this century. Today, there are about 2.4 billion people […]
SDGs: What Part Do Forests Play?
Deemed as the ‘lungs of the planet’ and covering 30% of the earth’s surface, forests are essential to supporting all life on Earth. Not only do forests provide a wide array of ecosystem services, such as absorbing greenhouse gases and regulating water quality, there are also over a billion people who depend on forests for […]
Meet the Winner: The Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security
Interview with Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA and Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security Winner The winner of the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security epitomises what is possible when you put the farmer at the centre of all you do. The winning research by Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA (the International […]
Meet the Winners: The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security
Interviews with The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security Winners Scientists hold some of the key answers to so many of today’s agricultural challenges at their fingertips. Our support for this community is a vital if we are to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Agropolis founder Louis Malassis knew this, long […]
Delivering on the Promise of Inclusive Business
Back in November 2008, on a hot, dusty day in Dar es Salaam, I vividly remember the moment I met Lillian Kessy. I was immediately struck by her confidence, dignity and determination. Only a year earlier, Lillian was in a desperate financial situation. By the time I met her, she was busy building a small […]
How Host Country Business Can Benefit by Engaging Migrants/Refugees as Consumers and Employees
Whether voluntary or forced, migration trends indicate an increase in flows which require urgent, innovative responses. The estimated numbers of international (across country borders) and internal (within country borders) migrants are 244 million and 740 million respectively, representing one seventh of the world’s population. Migrants move predominantly for voluntary reasons, but 65 million are forcibly […]
Effective Partnering: In Praise of Internal Politicians
The term ‘intrapreneur’ has emerged to describe people who stimulate innovation within their companies. A similar role describes the people who are able to navigate the various parts of their own organisations to enable them to engage in a partnership. Taking a cue from this recent HBR article, we can suggest the term ‘internal politician’ […]
How Can We Create an Enabling Environment for Inclusive Business?
How can we create an enabling environment for inclusive business? When I started to work on this question on behalf of the DCED’s Business Environment Working Group, I expected a relatively straightforward scan of the literature – after all, quite a bit has now been written about what governments can do to help inclusive business […]
Why the Role of Business is So Crucial in the Fight for a Fairer Tax System
By Radhika Sarin, Policy Adviser, Private Sector Team, Oxfam Oxfam engages with a wide range of actors – citizens, journalists, political leaders, policymakers and allies within the private sector – to achieve the changes we need to build a fairer, more transparent tax system. Two weeks ago, Oxfam released The Heist That No One’s Talking […]
Reaching Children Earlier to Disrupt Gender Norms and Improve Health
By Alyssa Govindan, Communications, GBCHealth GENDER NORMS & HEALTH IMPLICATIONS While gender norms are being challenged in the West, in many other parts of the world they are becoming further engrained. Even at a young age, gender norms can dictate the activities boys and girls are allowed to participate in. Behaviors as simple as playing […]