The opportunity of co-creation and shared value approaches with other businesses, local communities that bring a sense of shared prosperity and value to strong existing businesses. Shared value in knowledge, innovation that allow entrepreneurs, governments, organizations to overcome obstacles that would otherwise be impossible to breach.
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Part 3-
Many development donors have recognized that coordination among donors and collaboration across projects is necessary but not sufficient to address complex root issues. We have seen a rise in funding of integrated, multi-sectoral approaches in a growing number of programs that work at the nexus of health, governance, education, environment, and agriculture, among others. Implementers will be making those approaches work in practice to deliver meaningful, holistic change in peopleās multifaceted lives.
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Yes, regulations and reporting requirements are creating a lot of conversationā¦I hope it isnāt too skewed towards tick-box compliance!
A2: The Predistribution Initiative (PDI) is very excited to be part of an Interim Working Group working to launch the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD). The purpose of the TISFD is to strengthen the development of financial disclosures regarding inequality and social-related issues. The Taskforce aims to meet the distinct needs of providers of capital, companies, regulators, and civil society and labor organizations to assess material financial risk to enterprises as it relates to inequality and social issues, strengthen the stability of financial systems, evaluate and tackle the system-level risks posed by inequality, and improve outcomes for people, in particular those who are marginalized or disadvantaged. You can follow this emerging initiative here: Sign Up | LinkedIn
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A2 also innovative approaches to financing development. Not even that innovative now but building comfort with products like Development Impact Bonds. honest reflections from one of my Save the Children colleagues here on the challenges and opportunities these present Becoming a results focused organisation
A2:
We are midway in our journey to SDG and the world is mostly off track on majority of the SGDs. That should provide a bit of urgency for the world to focus on partnerships for sustainable solutions.
The worldās focus on Climate and ESG provides two big opportunities for bringing in partnerships around multisectoral approaches to address multiple deprivations.
There is an SDG around partnerships for good reason. Our work at The Power of Nutrition, supports SDG 17 and in particular, weāre prioritising partnerships that break down traditional barriers between sectors to catalyse impact. One example is our partnership with Gavi and Unilever ā integrating WASH, Nutrition and Immunisation ā each of these sectors often target the same communities, and these interventions are mutually reinforcing. Working closing with local governments, weāre trying to integrate nutrition into other national systems to support development in a sustainable way.
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A2: Investment and support to the businesses at the center of food supply chains is an idea that is attracting greater interestāand it deserves even more.
At TechnoServe, we see these as linchpin businesses in our food systems. If we help agribusinesses like grain millers to become more competitive, more inclusive, and more sustainable in their operations, that will create better markets and jobs for farmers and workers, better nutrition for base-of-the-pyramid consumers, and better outcomes for the environment.
The fact that an additional 120 million people have been pushed into hunger since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic only adds urgency to this work.
We also see food-and-beverage companies building on the work theyāre doing in regenerative agriculture to see how else their supply chains can improve environmental and social outcomes. Packaging, transportation, energy usage, and even product formulation are all means by which companies can reduce emissions, restore nature, and benefit their customers and suppliers.
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A2: As many orgs focus on ādoing more with lessā, our experience and operational capabilities help to focus efforts, build efficiencies and find resources via collaboration and ābeyond complianceā approaches. Weāve been doing this long enough to have been through a couple economic cycles!
A2 (part 2): Closing the Living Wage and Income Gap
In 2023, all major UK retailers signed the IDH commitment to close the Living Wage and Living Income Gaps in the banana sector by 2027. As the cost of living crisis and high inflation continues to put pressure on producersā livelihoods, Fairtrade welcomes this commitment and sees this collective agreement as a key opportunity in 2024 to make groundbreaking progress in achieving living wages worldwide.
As a certification, Fairtrade strives to play a key role in supporting businesses on delivering living wage and living income commitments. In 2021, we introduced the Fairtrade Base Wage as part of the Banana Hired Labour Standards, requiring wages for certification to be, at a minimum, set at 70% of the living wage. In 2023, Fairtrade became the only global standard which calculates a publicly available Living Wage Reference Price (LWRP). In 2024, we are committed to providing the tools and the data needed to enable our partners to pay a fair price in bananas and we will continue to call on UK businesses to be bold in this space with us.
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Iām going to break down the āyouā into 3 perspectives: the personal level, the āyouā as in the organisation level and the āyouā as in the societal level.
A. On a personal level, I see a number of challenges that we as individuals are facing in 2024: lots of people are struggling financially, regardless of the country theyāre from, due to the rising inflation globally, the impact of wars and conflicts on the economy, the consequences of the pandemic which have waned down a bit but not entirely, and the sheer fact that climate change impacts us more and more visibly. There is a clear understanding that the social, economic, and environmental challenges are linked and need to be addressed.
B. On a company level, in general, 2024 is the year where weāll find out what AI means for us in the workplace. Will it be a good thing? Will AI be used for good things, or will it cause even more inequalities and breakdowns? Then there is the challenge to embed sustainability into our business models, in a way that is not just greenwashing. We can no longer ignore climate change, and we need to do something meaningful about it. Not just talk, not just marketing, real actions. We need to be more imaginative and dare to think of alternative business models that account for our planet but also for people, not just for profits.
C. From a societal POV, all of the challenges I mentioned in points A and B aggregate, and add up to other issues, more political ones in fact. Someone here mentioned the rise of the far-right and the backlash against ESG and inclusivity, and that is very worrying. I donāt have answers to these challenges, but if we start naming them at least, we can start thinking collectively about their solutions. And I think this is the main point I want to make, is that we need collective and cooperative thinking now more than ever to overcome these challenges.
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Agreed, @will - we also see investors have a key role, and increasing involvement and potential impact on companies. We are speaking to financial institutions more and more, where they want to understand issues like Deforestation and Conversion-Free commodities, what that means, their risk etc. Proforestās DCF methodology was used in Generation IMās recent investor guide on āMaking Sense of Deforestationā if that is of interest for anyone.
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A2 At the risk of sounding naive, all challenges can be opportunitiesā¦As the UN moves to take a hard look at its priorities and involvements some opportunities to inform these deliberations are emerging, a dizzying number of them in fact. The UN Secretary Generalās report, Our Common Agenda, has recognized that engagement with other societal partners is needed to rise to challenges today and tomorrow. We welcome this acknowledgement!
As Justin mentioned, important COPs and UN mtgs in NYC can pursue opportunities to open their doors to stakeholders and solutions providers for meaningful and mainstreamed engagement - impact, ongoing discussions towards solutions, and lasting partnership.
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Relating to my work on gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), I want to see us address the challenge of how we can better prevent GBVH in concrete ways so that we move from just managing the consequences of GBVH after it occurs to a more holistic approach involving prevention. I am particularly interested in developing better methodologies for risk assessment on GBVH so that we can focus on identifying the risk factors that can be prevented. This is also relevant to developing methodologies on gender-responsive risk assessment in occupational safety and health and gender-responsive approaches to human rights due diligence and applying this to preventing GBVH across the supply chain.
Iām doing some work with the automobile sector at the moment on preventing GBVH in the battery supply chainā¦its all closely related to how we can develop a gender-responsive system for human rights due diligence HRDD that directly addresses the problems of GBVH. Its challenging but gives us a framework to work with. I was recently visiting some of the nickle mines in Indonesia and it is clear that we need to be using our leverage in the companies producing EVs to force better prevention of GBVH in the mines (by the way terrible cases of sexual abuse, harassment and risks faced by women workers in this sector).
A2: Top Opportunities in 2024:
As noted by several fellow participants in this chat (which is amazing - thank you to Business Fights Poverty for convening us!), companies and governments have made a lot of ambitious commitments. Our collective opportunity now is accountability - workign to ensure that these important actors live up to those existing commitments, whether that is COP 28 (food systems, financing, etc.) or companiesā own ESG policies or regulatory actions like EU CSDDD and others mentioned in this chat already.
Regarding climate mitigation and adaption - there are already a lot of great ideas and pilots; letās figure out what works and scale those.
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Something I think deserves more discussion/unpacking is this issue of leveraging ODA to mobilise private sector investment. And how to make sure that centres inequality and poverty reduction. Lots of focus on big numbers (that havenāt materialised) but the impact and quality of those investments need more scrutiny. There is clearly an opportunity there - but we arenāt getting it right.
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Wonderfully put Stephanie. We at ChildFund see much potential with our youth for climate innovation and leadership in the green transition.
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A2: Well, as indicated in my response to A1, for me the biggest challenge is the biggest opportunity. I am focused on how any person can do something to find common ground with others so that, even if we disagree, we have something to hold onto and that itself will enhance civil conversation. I wasnāt going to post this, but since it came up in a side Zoom conversation also ongoing, hereās an example of a TED Talk I did in a Dog Park so show how even our canine best friends can show us how to overcome social divides: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwis6Y_JqvaDAxUqHjQIHcZzDJcQtwJ6BAgcEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Ftim_fort_what_can_the_dog_park_teach_us_about_bridging_great_societal_divides&usg=AOvVaw3BJcWFEdFFUTDBa4hkebbn&opi=89978449
A2:
- Continue to define and redefine what good is and the ways in which better can be achieved. This is true for our different organisations, policies, and even at the individual level.
- Relatedly, while weāre already seeing traction on this we have the opportunity to scale this, which is about injecting positivity, joy and creativity into our work: recognising that while thereās so much more to do, we also have more and more tools to do so, more and more people waking up to the realities weāre facing, and as such, itās a matter of starting to put people and solutions into place and at scale.
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Thanks Ali - absolutely agreed. Some interesting conversations to be had with ShareAction and similar
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In a sentence, the biggest opportunity that Root Capital sees in 2024 is to leverage the power of small and growing agricultural businesses to lift families out of poverty, mitigating climate change, creating a more gender-equitable world, and generating jobs for the next generation in rural communities.
To capitalize on this, we need more actors (donors, investors, banks, supply chain partners) to truly understand the transformative power of these agricultural businesses to achieve the goals weāre all hoping to achieve. Farming communities and the businesses that support them are key to every SDG and continuing to exclude their full participation slows us all down.
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