When we started to implement the Business Innovation Facility (BIF), a programme funded by DFID and managed by an alliance including TPI, I was among many who thought that supporting companies to partner would be central to what unfolded over the three years of the pilot.
Partnering for Inclusive Business
Inclusive business (IB) projects, by definition, tend to sit in areas outside of companies’ traditional comfort zones. Whether providing incomes to disadvantaged people by including them in the company’s value chain, or developing new markets with pro-poor products or services, they are rarely business as usual, requiring a much stronger interaction with ‘society’ than traditional business.
Business Opportunity in the Toilet: Partnering to Flush it Out
Imagine this: You manage a successful company that distributes Portable Toilet Cabins (PTC) in India. You see 24% of India’s urban population living in slums with very limited access to formal toilets, 50% of India’s population still defecating in the open, and around 6,000 children dying each day from diseases related to poor sanitation, such as diarrhoea.
Connected agriculture – some reflections on the new Vodafone report
I was very interested to read the new report from Vodafone – ‘Connected Agriculture: The role of mobile in driving efficiency and…, having been a participant in one of the external workshops that helped to shape it. I wasn’t disappointed.
Grassroots capacity building in Bangladesh
In remote parts of Bangladesh, existing farming methods do not provide sufficient yield to meet the needs of the people. The government urgently needs to reach farmers with knowledge about fertilizer use and simple techniques and technologies that can increase agricultural output considerably. However, the scale of the rural population is so great, that local […]