WASHINGTON, DC | December 1, 2014 - This week on BIZ+SOCIAL, we bring you the best from the New Global Citizen, 3BL, SSIR, and more.

GLOBAL PRO BONO

Global Pro Bono is Moving the Needle on Maternal Health - #3blchat Recap

Jacaranda Health, along with PYXERA Global partnership including Merck, US AID and PHI to improve maternal healthcare in Kenya. Leaders from each of the organizations joined together to share their experiences of this pro bono collaboration to inspire others to think and act more globally. Along with our expert panel, other like-minded organizations, maternal health leaders, interested individuals, and even some Fellows who had been a part of the project in Kenya joined the #3blchat. It did not take long for the #3blchat stream to be taken over by attendee participation and panelist excitement. It was an intense 60-minute conversation that we can only hope to highlight in this blog. The chat quickly took off discussing the need for access to quality, respectful maternal health care, two Merck fellows from this recent initiative in Kenya even attended to share their first hand experiences.The statistics regarding maternal health across the globe were eye opening and supported the need for more programs like this. Read More…

IMPACT & INNOVATION

Part II: Tackling the Future of Food, Water, and Energy at #NI14

Humans are the world’s biggest social challenge. By 2050, 9 billion people will inhabit the earth. This was one most frequently cited statistics over the course of the three-day Net Impact Conference. The conversation focused broadly on the power of business to tackle the world’s toughest social and environmental problems, but in discussing the specifics, two facts featured prominently. First, the planet’s rising population is the biggest limiting factor on the world’s water, energy, and food supply. Second, each of these challenges, though individually complex, is inherently intertwined. As water crises around the world threaten this critical relationship, companies at the intersection of food, energy, and water must proactively collaborate to manage risk and ensure the stable supply of these resources. Water is a precious commodity in its own right, but it also plays a critical enabling role in energy production. It is used in power plant cooling and in providing the hydropower necessary for fossil fuel production processes, just two examples of how water is used in nearly every phase of energy production. Likewise, energy is necessary to extract and distribute water from aquifers for agriculture, for desalination, and of course in the distribution and heating of the water people drink, cook, and wash with every day. Read more…

LEADERSHIP

The Dawn of System Leadership

With the passing of Nelson Mandela in late 2013, the world celebrated a remarkable life. But the spotlight on Mandela’s accomplishments relegated to the shadows much of the reason that he has had such a lasting impact, in South Africa and beyond. Above all, Mandela embodied a system leader, someone able to bring forth collective leadership. In countless ways, large and small, he undertook interventions aimed at bringing together the remnants of a divided country to face their common challenges collectively and build a new nation. In the four delicate years between Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and the first open election, he supported a scenario process that brought together the formerly banned black political parties to work through their alternative visions for the future of South Africa. Exploring their different ideologies and their implications openly and together resulted in the moderating of potentially divisive differences that could have ripped the nation apart, such as whether or not to nationalize critical industries. Read More…

ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT

Triple Bottom Line: An African Business Plan to Benefit the Environment, the Community and the Company

Green technology has been advancing significantly in recent years, providing opportunities for virtually any business to be more responsible and environmentally conscious. Still, striving to protect the environment can potentially hurt a company’s profits, and negatively affect the local economy. This is particularly true in Africa, where developing countries are working to balance rapid economic growth with eco-friendly policies. Affordable housing is also lacking on the continent. From 2001 to 2014, there was a housing shortage of 60 million units. Africa’s population is growing, and quickly finding that there is nowhere to live. International Green Structures was originally conceived as a provider of environmentally sound disaster housing for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. IGS pairs compressed agricultural fiber panels with a pre-engineered framing system, which can be made into a variety of designs called IGStructures. Because the panels are made from a sustainable agricultural resource left from the harvest of rice and wheat, they are virtually 100 percent green. Read more…

CITIZEN DIPLOMACY

“Global Citizenship” is Becoming a Brand Instead of a Way of Being

This September, 50,000 people gathered on Central Park’s Great Lawn in New York City for arguably the best concert of the year. The 3rd Global Citizen Festival featured Beyonce, JAY Z, No Doubt, Sting, Carrie Underwood, and the Roots, alongside 15 national leaders—in town for UN Week—and close to 100 other celebrities. Their mission: end extreme poverty. The Global Citizen festival is an initiative of the Global Poverty Project (GPP) that seeks to “grow the number and effectiveness of Global Citizens to achieve the public, business, and political commitment and action to end extreme poverty” by 2030. GPP and the Global Citizen Festival are not alone in this pursuit. The World Bank, the UN Foundation, and several other organizations are allied with this target date in mind. What is unique about the Global Citizen campaign is its insistence that such efforts are principally oriented around justice, and a need for countries and corporations to pledge more dollars in aid to bring about this end. Read More…

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