NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The world faces unprecedented convergence of social and environmental challenges. COVID-19 continues to impact the lives, livelihoods and access to learning of the most vulnerable people. Unless action is taken now, these impacts will be long-lasting. At the same time, it is recognised that urgent action on climate change must put people at the centre of efforts on mitigation and adaptation. The transition to a green economy must also be a just one.

Across these challenges, the impacts reflect deep-seated inequities – due to factors including gender, race, and income. COVID-19 has pushed back progress on gender equity and poverty reduction, and climate change is doing the same. People from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds face disproportionate barriers.

While the challenges are unprecedented, so too are the opportunities to tackle them collaboratively. Business is now seen as a key partner, alongside government and civil society.  Employees, customers, stakeholders and shareholders, believe business must take a stand on social and environmental issues. The focus is now on how we can collaborate – to tackle both rapid onset challenges and deeper systemic issues.

They invite you to join them for a week, highly interactive event brings together voices and insights from across the globe, from business, NGOs, academia and government – to share the latest thinking on the nature of the challenges we face, and the nature of the solutions that are needed. Join them to access the very latest thinking so that you can increase the impact of your efforts.

Each day, we come together to explore a different theme around how we can “Rebuild Better” from the pandemic – Leadership, Gender, Livelihoods, Climate and Partnership. Business Fights Poverty will share practical lessons and identify new opportunities to collaborate to tackle the big social and environmental challenges that we all care about.

The event is the latest in their series of Rebuild Better Summits, and is co-hosted with Unilever, and a number of partners, including the International Finance Corporation and the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School.