Browse by Theme: Private Sector

How much does the average high street shopper pay attention to where their clothes come from? If asked, most people wouldn’t think of Laos – but according to a 2012 World Bank report, even though Laos’ production of garments is still modest compared to some of its more competitive neighbours (China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam), garment production is the largest manufacturing sector in the country, with an annual turnover of $200 million. The sector employs more than 20,000 people in over 100 factories, and as with other low-cost garment-producing countries, most of the garment workers in Laos are young (17-25 years old), female (85%) and have migrated from the country’s rural areas. But do the pull factors of rural-urban migration translate into a better life?

When I arrived in Yasubi, a small and industrious village in the Okapa district of the Papua New Guinea highlands, I could see that most of the services we normally take for granted – like electricity, running water, accessible roads – were absent. Most of the hard-working, coffee-producing families live in traditional round huts, with smoke from a wood fire rising through the grass roof so that, from outside, the structure looks like some huge vegetable just pulled out of a pot of hot water.

Promoting gender equality is a core belief of the Cocoa Life programme. For years we have been working with partners including humanitarian organisations like CARE International to implement programmes that empower women in cocoa communities, writes Cathy Pieters, Global Director of Cocoa Life, Mondelēz International.

Post-war Sri Lanka (since 2009) has much to offer tourists, and the country is relying on the hospitality and tourism sector to drive up economic gains and create a positive ripple effect on related social factors – such as meeting the employment needs of several million young Sri Lankans on the look-out to secure a job. But why is it that so many women in the sector are not being supported in their careers – and why, in some cases, is it so hard for women to even enter the workforce?

The global negotiations to agree a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate global poverty by 2030 will come to a conclusion this September. Many supporters of women’s economic empowerment have backed a petition urging governments to ensure women’s access to financial services is included, so what are the chances?

Many of us dream of a world free from poverty, but how can this be realistically achieved, especially for smallholder farmers who make up the majority of the world’s poor?

One important answer to this question is found in our new book, Making markets more inclusive: Lessons from CARE and the future of sustainability in agricultural value chain development. In it, we highlight lessons from one of the most intensely developed agricultural value chain initiatives in the world: CARE’s work in the dairy value chain in northwest Bangladesh.

The UN Climate Change talks and the agreement of the Sustainable Development Goals are going to be incredibly important for both NGOs and business in 2015 – but what are some of the other key issues we will be working on with business this year? Here, four of our inclusive business experts have rounded up some key initiatives and (frankly) wishes for 2015...