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Spreading the Gospel
EARLIER this year Mario Chady faced a crucial decision. Having built up Spoleto, his chain of casual Italian restaurants, to 150 outlets in Brazil, and opened in Mexico and Spain, the time had come for Mr Chady, based in Rio de Janeiro, to choose between expanding into America or putting the idea on hold for at least 18 months. To help make up his mind, he asked for help from an organisation called Endeavor, which had chosen him as a potential ?high-impact entrepreneur? in 2003. Endea...
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Bank on Them
Ideas have the power to change history. When new ideas emerge, they challenge established ways of thinking and acting, and suggest alternative approaches to resolve problems confronting the world. Yet ideas can turn out to be birds without wings. Without visionary and committed individuals who can actualise them, new ideas will hardly make any difference to the lives of people. They will remain as wishful thinking and disappear without trace. Many social entrepreneurs across the w...
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What Gets Measured Gets Done – WBCSD Launches Measuring Impact Framework
Business knows that what gets measured gets done. In this spirit, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) launches the Measuring Impact Framework to help companies measure and assess the impact of their business activities on economic and broader development goals wherever they operate. The Framework includes 3 compone...
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MBAs lift non-profit sector
When discussing the social sector, Bill Drayton, founder and chief executive of Ashoka, a non-profit organisation that promotes social entrepreneurs, remembers the sector 25 years ago. Salaries were pathetic, smart people would avoid it, it was disorganised, he says. That’s all gone. We’ve been catching up and once you go from non-competitive to competitive, organisations have to join in the party or they’ll be eaten alive. As many no...
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Asiapro: A thriving self-help enterprise
Self-help or self-reliance continues to be the basic philosophy underlying the country’s social reform and poverty alleviation efforts. Self-sustaining businesses and livelihood ventures are encouraged, which led to the development of groups with self-help programs that require little (to no) assistance from the government. Asiapro Multi-purpose Cooperative is a notable sample. Asiapro empowers what was previously an unorganized sector in RP: informal/ non-regular workers. Base...
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Woman’s nonprofit brings power, hope to Africans
When someone switches on a light in Banco, Mali, it’s most likely connected to a photovoltaic solar power system in the village. But its original source can be traced to an unassuming house in James City County . That’s where Mary Graham, who grew up in Northern ...
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Business with the poor
In the race to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, it is critical to examine all tools at our disposal to alleviate poverty. The greatest untapped resource is the enormous potential, in the form of investment and innovation, of the private sector. And the success of any private enterprise with the poor depends on a dialogue and often collaboration with governments. United Nations Development Programme’s new report Creating Value for All: Strategies for Doing Business wi...
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Rwanda: The Starving Bottom Billion
This week Trade Ministers assemble in Geneva to try and make progress at the World Trade Organisation on the Doha Development trade round. The global economy needs the boost that further trade liberalisation has always delivered. However, it’s true of generals, leaders, and bureaucrats, that we fight the next war, or address the next problem based on the evidence of our last battle when things have moved on. My experience of the 1970’s prepared me for the needs o...
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