News

The Business Call to Action‘s sixth annual forum took place in conjunction with the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event convened over 150 people from Business Call to Action member companies, development and civil society partners.
Inclusive Business: Contributing to the New Development agenda:

Setting up the right partnerships is often cited as a key success factor for small businesses. The right partners help businesses overcome multiple challenges, drive growth and innovation. But finding the right partner, deciding how to collaborate and setting up a mutually beneficial relationship is not an easy process

In an article recently published in Thinkers, an Indian quarterly magazine, Filippo Veglio, Director of the WBCSD’s Social Impact Cluster, examines the scalability of inclusive business ventures targeting the base of the pyramid by expanding access to goods, services, and livelihoods in commercially viable ways (Geneva, August 7, 2015).
He shares the WBCSD’s perspectives on the concept of scale, and highlights the results of the research conducted by the Council around the key internal barriers faced by multinational companies when it comes to scaling up these ventures.

What approach should large companies take when setting up and implementing inclusive business initiatives? What are the successful companies doing right and what do others need to do better? These were just some of the questions addressed in a live online webinar on Friday 26th June hosted by The Practitioner Hub and Business Call to Action. The discussion was frank and engaging, and packed with plenty of learnings from the first hand experience of panellists that have long been engaged with implementing inclusive business initiatives for large companies.

Last month, local IB organisations My Pads, Stimulus, Bucklesbury and RCSR, took part in a week long learning event on Social Entrepreneurship with other organisations from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique.
The event forms part of SNV's global initiative entitled "LEAP+" which targets 150 leaders of private and civil organisations in 19 SNV countries who currently offer development services.

The Inclusive Business Scan is a facility which has been designed to assist assess potential Inclusive Business projects and, in terms of the Win-Win concept of Inclusive Business, whether or not they make business sense both for the company and the small scale operators or community based organisations concerned.