Electronic money is pro-poor
Blog written by Ignacio Mas, an independent consultant on technology-enabled models for financial inclusion. He has been senior advisor in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and at the Technology Program at CGAP. Previously he was director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, and a senior […]
Jo Wackrill: Six Essential Mindsets for Long-Term Leadership
Today, there is widespread consensus that short-termism on the part of business leaders is not serving society, the environment or even business itself. In response, there have been many calls for ‘responsible’ leadership. These are a reminder that ethics, integrity and high business standards are essential characteristics of business leaders if they are to regain […]
Overwhelmed-in-Burundi
Far from the coziness of my £1,000 seat on the trading floor of an investment company watching multiple blinking screens, or even before that, the vast amount of access to knowledge and resources I had at a Big 4 firm, I now feel like I’m a shrimp on a plank in the middle of the […]
Hybrid Value Chains: new opportunities for business growth while tackling development challenges?
By Michael Jarvis, World Bank Institute Can social entrepreneurs forge a more productive collaboration with corporations? One that is good for business growth but also tackles development challenges? Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich suggest just that in a new article in Harvard Business Review. They introduce the concept of hybrid value chains (HVCs) based around […]
Amanda Bowman: Employee Engagement in Disaster Response – It Can be Done
I was last in New Orleans in 1998 – long before Katrina devastated the city and from a personal perspective, when my two teenage daughters were still toddlers. This time, I was in town earlier this month to participate in a meeting of the Global Corporate Volunteer Council. Nearly 20 managers responsible for their companies’ […]
The Business Case for Employee Volunteering – Case #1
Case #1 – Employee Engagement Many companies have employee volunteer programs, but for many companies in Europe, Canada and the US these programs are underfunded, underdeveloped and underutilized. This blog series is meant to offer a number of compelling reasons why your business needs to invest (a bit more) in employee volunteering. Employee Engagement: The […]
The Painful Story of Contracting in Afghanistan: I know a guy…
When we first started our local procurement project in January 2006, convincing international organizations to buy locally from Afghan businesses was a tough sell. Buyers had a laundry list of reasons that condemned local businesses to small value work, usually using the “I-know-a-guy” method of procurement. When the biggest spender operating in the country started […]
Clare Melford: A focus on ‘responsible marketing’ with the Bailey Review
As a former MTV executive, I was very interested to read about the Bailey Review (‘Letting Children be Children’), published in the UK media last week. It recommends inter alia that music videos should have age ratings to protect children from sexual images and lyrics. Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union, has led a […]
Supply Chain Risk and Sustainability: Potential for Partnership
Markets and Value Chains, Private Sector and Markets Programme, Overseas Development Institute Uncertainty abounds. The global climate is changing – catastrophic … cropping up with alarming frequency. Weather patterns are increasingly unpredictable; rains fail or floods destroy whole settlements. Commodity prices are rising; energy and fuel costs are increasing, (oil-based) fertiliser is increasingly expensive and […]
Stephen Farrant and Shivvy Jervis: We Need a Green ‘Innovation Revolution’ for Business to be Truly Sustainable
It’s a straightforward premise really – in the longer run, all business has to be environmentally sustainable or the laws of science will take over. We believe there is a clear and compelling business case for energy-intensive businesses to put environmental responsibility and resource efficiency on their core agenda now. And with the operating environment […]
Désirée Abrahams: Human Rights Impact Assessments are Like a Promising School Band
Last week, I attended the 31st International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) Conference, held in the stunning, colonial Méxican city of Puebla. I was honoured to be invited to this amazing conference; not only to listen and learn from those working at all levels in the impact assessment (IA) field but also because the session […]
Driving and Supporting Effective and Systemic Multi-Sector Collaboration
Nearly two decades ago, the UN’s Rio Declaration had the goal of “establishing a new and equitable global partnership through the creation of new levels of cooperation among States, key sectors of societies and people”. And then a decade ago, the major outcome of the Johannesburg follow-up Summit (Rio+10) was around the launching of 350 […]
Sharon D’Agostino: Looking Past the Data to See the Face of Motherhood
Often, people committed to global health are surrounded by statistics – and it can be easy for numbers to lose their meaning. Our work on maternal and child health issues has shown me staggering gaps in the quality of life for women and children around the world, but even I sometimes have trouble putting data […]
Making Broadband Accessible For All
Blog by Matthew Kirk, Group External Affairs Director, Vodafone Group and Steve Bratt, Chief Executive Officer, World Wide Web Foundation, about the twelfth in the Series of Policy Papers, launched on 19 May 2011, from the Vodafone Socio-Economic Impact of Mobile (SIM) Advisory Panel. To download the report, click here. Most governments rightly see getting […]
“Cracking the Code” on Access to new Housing for the BoP in Latin America
Post by Susan Olsen, Lead Specialist, Opportunities for the Majority Initiative, Inter-American Development Bank We know markets often fail the poor. The “Opportunities for the Majority” Initiative (OMJ) of the IDB seeks to develop and promote market-based solutions to help solve the market failures that prevent the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) from accessing quality […]
Joe Phelan and Olive Boles: 10 ways to engage the private sector in health
Investing in the health of women and children is not only the right thing to do, it also builds stable, peaceful and productive societies. It reduces poverty, stimulates economic growth, is cost-effective and crucially, helps women and children realise their fundamental human rights. In September last year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched “Every Woman […]
Joe Phelan: India’s difficulty with being good
For the past two weeks, I’ve been working with Apeejay Surrendra – a privately owned Indian conglomerate – to launch their new India Volunteer Awards. “The purpose is to encourage volunteering and volunteer engaging organisations – corporate and NGO – across India,” says Shalab Sahai, founder of iVolunteer, a partner in the awards. Multinational companies […]
Jessica Scholl: To Divest or Not to Divest? – Doing Business in High-Risk Zones
As events rapidly unfold in the Arab World, the plight of business has been woefully under-reported. Companies with operations or investments in the region are finding themselves embroiled in morally, and often times legally, ambiguous situations. Political uncertainty further complicates the scenario, often requiring different policies to address unique circumstances. From the relatively peaceful to […]
Clare Melford: Inspired Leadership – Towards a Sustainable World
The number of Americans who believe that the free market economy is the best economic system is in free fall, a recent poll from GlobeScan shows. Tracking opinions from 2002 and across 25 countries, the poll shows that many emerging economies now surpass the USA in feeling positive about the free market system! Americans rated […]
Brook Horowitz: Corporate Culture that Has Less Vertical Power
The simultaneous visit to Moscow last month of two of the world’s most senior anti-corruption regulators highlights the attention governments are devoting to fighting corruption and the challenges they face in some of the biggest emerging markets. Lanny Breuer, head of the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal division, which manages the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and […]