A Practitioner’s Guide to Supporting Market Systems Change toward Inclusion and Equity
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and highlighted the inequities that perpetuate harmful outcomes for billions of people around the globe. A growing number of voices call for global leaders to seize this crisis as an opportunity to “rebuild better.” However, this is easier said than done.
How can leaders help markets achieve systemic transformations toward inclusion and equity?
A case study on Energía para la Paz, a shared value initiative of Grupo Energía Bogotá
Article
After Colombia's historic 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group, people in rural areas heavily affected by the conflict began dreaming about a different future. However, decades of violence had left hundreds of landmines, thousands of deaths, and millions of people displaced, in addition to high levels of poverty and a weakened social fabric.
Faced with the COVID-19 crisis, communities in Massachusetts have come together in inspiring ways to assess emerging needs, provide credible information, expand access to services, and provide opportunities for older adults to connect with each other and with their neighbors.
By 2050, over two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas. However, water and sanitation services are often unable to keep pace with population growth in rapidly urbanizing cities, leading to deteriorating health conditions.
Household sanitation is a longstanding development priority for the government of Uganda. However, access to basic sanitation is still low and the country is off-track to meet the Sustainability Development Goal related to universal access to sanitation by 2030. This, coupled with the government’s policy that considers sanitation to be a household responsibility, provides tremendous opportunity to foster market-based sanitation as the mechanism to increase basic sanitation across the country.
With increasing recognition that markets today create wealth and positive social impact inequitably, more companies must rethink their purpose and strategies in order to provide real and lasting solutions to these substantial problems. In the process, they must identify new business models to ensure a more positive impact on key environmental and social conditions and set themselves ambitious financial and social targets.
On the surface, India’s impact investing ecosystem is thriving. There is high activity with deals happening across sectors and enterprise stages. At the same time, the narrative on impact investing has primarily been centered on capital supply and many investors in India have focused on achieving market-rate returns. This focus on returns left us wondering: are there areas currently not benefitting from this dynamic market?
A Case Study of Milwaukee’s COVID-19 Civic Response Team
Press Release
August 20, 2020 /3BL Media/ Milwaukee’s COVID-19 response has been a remarkable mobilization of resources and organizations to address needs for shelter, food, testing, Internet connection, and more. Necessity has forced such collective efforts in many cities, but Milwaukee’s may be unique in the civic architecture that has been built and that may be sustained beyond the crisis.
The global impact of COVID-19 has exposed policies that maintain and even promote structural inequities, and in some cases, indifference to suffering. Companies responding to the many facets of the crisis understand the inextricable link between health outcomes of their employees and customers, with their own corporate health. Successful companies are proving that agility and an openness to new ways of working are better able to meet urgent needs with innovative solutions and partnerships.
FSG managing director Adeeb Mahmud joins Philanthropy Southwest as moderator of their upcoming webinar Galvanizing Resources (Beyond Dollars) Together. The discussion will focus on how corporate and private philanthropy can leverage resources beyond cash and collaborate more.
