Inclusive Distribution: The Secret to Securing a Route-to-Market
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are well aware that emerging and developing markets represent their greatest growth opportunity. 90 percent of Unilever’s global growth and Procter & Gamble’s only growth came from emerging markets during 2008-2014. Yet, with the majority of population growth over the next 35 years expected to be in today’s developing countries, […]
Blockchain Will Bring Empowerment And Transparency To Development
The open source, decentralised database blockchain allows donors, aid agencies, NGOs and beneficiaries to operate transparent, agile and open networks. Software is eating the world. And it is also gaining more and more importance and changing processes in development. Access to smartphones is increasing fast. And as we are seeing the first fruitful outcomes stemming […]
USAID Partners to Invest in Africa’s Entrepreneurs
This week’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which brings thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymakers to Johannesburg, South Africa, is an opportunity to build on the momentum of the Sankalp Africa Forum and reaffirm the development community’s commitment to invest in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Sustainable entrepreneurship is a critical component of inclusive development. Entrepreneurs create jobs, […]
Co-Creating Partnerships to Achieve the Global Goals
With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) having significantly raised the bar regarding ambition and universality, there is agreement that we have to go well beyond business as usual. Achieving breakthrough progress in these rapidly-changing times requires a new mind-set and different behavior from all of us. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not […]
Fairtrade Fortnight: Don’t Feed Exploitation
‘Let’s not accept exploitation in industry’, says Fairtrade CEO Despite an increase in global demand for cocoa and the worldwide push to tackle poverty when the Global Goals launched last year, today many farmers who grow the crop live with poverty and exploitation – in Cote D’Ivoire 80% of the population still survive on less […]
Strategic Ideas for Investing in NGOs Innovation
Kickstarting the year for Bond’s Futures and Innovation Group “real world innovation” meeting series, James Whitehead, Oxfam’s global innovation adviser, held a fantastic session on business model innovation at Oxfam GB last week. Breaking the mould of secrecy and competitive thinking among INGOs, James used the session to share Oxfam’s exciting challenge for the next […]
Finding Better Ways to Prepare for Future Health Threats
Ebola, Zika, SARS and the return of avian flu to the headlines this week are reminders that the threat of a new epidemic is never far away. With increased air travel and populations on the move, it doesn’t take long for a virus to spread between countries and jump across continents, with potentially catastrophic results. […]
Urban Health in Africa: Advancing Multi-disciplinary Approaches
Rapid urbanization in low- and middle-income countries is having a significant impact on the health and wellbeing on the world’s population. Healthcare services in growing cities are struggling, and are already swamped with ongoing challenges like infectious diseases. They have limited time or resources to tackle chronic diseases like high blood pressure, which are often […]
Sustainable Business Leadership in 2017: Game On
At the start of last year, we were still riding the highs of 2015, which saw important progress on sustainable business. The year just past, 2016, for multiple reasons, was less positive. How will 2017 break the tie? Let’s start by looking back to where we were a year ago. Here’s the good news: The […]
Making DFID’s Economic Development Strategy Work for Women
CARE firmly believes that inclusive economic development is at the core of eliminating extreme poverty and injustice. So we welcome DFID’s focus on this agenda and their long-awaited strategy, published this week. What we are most concerned about now, though, is how it will deliver for the world’s poorest women. We should be cautious about […]
Best Practice: Community Engagement in the Mining Sector
Candid Reflections on How Companies and Donors Collaborate
Are you already collaborating in a business-donor partnership, seeking one, or nursing bruises from one? Such collaborations are increasingly common, but it’s rare that we hear candid views from businesses and donor programmes alike, on what worked, what didn’t, and what tips they can offer others. This month on the Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business, […]
These 5 Innovations Will Transform the Lives of Smallholder Farmers
This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017. From artificial intelligence, to precision agriculture, to the internet of things, emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way food is consumed, handled and produced. But which technologies could most powerfully transform the lives of smallholder farmers? These, after all, are the […]
What prize awaits Businesses that Embrace the Sustainable Development Goals?
By Sue Adkins, International Director, Business in the Community As the Business Sustainable Development Commission launches its report Better Business, Better World as the World Economic Forum in Davos, marking the first anniversary of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sue Adkins, International Director at BITC looks at how businesses are embracing the SDGs. The […]
‘We the People’ for Social and Economic Sustainability
The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union are undergoing dramatic social, economic and cultural change in a volatile political environment. Donald Trump’s victory was the outcome of years of disturbing world events, a turbulent financial system, and economic stagnation in the U.S. In the wake of the election, the political system being scrutinized, […]
On the Ground in Africa: Embedding Responsible Investment Practices
Interview with Marjorie Mayida, Chair, Old Mutual Africa’s Responsible Investment Committee As a long-term investor and responsible steward of the assets it manages on behalf of its customers, Old Mutual Africa is on course to becoming the leading responsible investor on the continent, where it has offices in Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Old Mutual […]
Why Business and Social Protection are Not Contradictory but “Two Sides of the Same Coin”
Longstanding (mis-)perception of the distinctiveness of business ambitions and Social Protection (SP) goals has inhibited identification of joint opportunities to leverage synergies for effectively addressing needs with market based solutions. This discussion is increasingly relevant for protracted (often chronic displacement) crises caused by conflict or weather induced disasters that create and exacerbate existing vulnerabilities among […]
The Year Ahead and the Need to Rethink Collaboration
2016 convinced me of the need to collaborate more deeply than ever: to deliver on the bold future envisioned in the new Sustainable Development Goals; to protect past progress made towards equality—now threatened by the politics of division; to tackle the deep social exclusion that has at least in part driven the political turbulence of […]
Top 10 Discussions of 2016
2016 saw our 100th online discussion, with over 1,300 comments posted over the course of the year! Online discussions have played a central role in our new Challenges as a way for members to share insights on the Challenge question. From next year, we will be upgrading our discussion forum to make it easier to […]
Top 10 Blogs of 2016
Over 2016, members and Content Partners shared over 430 articles on Business Fights Poverty – valuable insights, cases studies and reports. We now have an archive of close to 5,300 stories! To help you find content most relevant to you, we are rolling out a new personalised newsletter that will prioritise articles relevant to the […]