Publication database

This case study focuses on L’Occitane’s involvement with the shea sector in Burkina Faso. The report explores the inclusive business model of L’Occitane, which includes the sourcing of shea butter from rural cooperatives and the provision of capacity development for the supplying communities. The study presents constraints and the solutions adopted by the company in Burkina Faso as well as its results, including economic, social and environmental impacts.

In this video interview, Nestlé’s Janet Voûte discusses the link between business growth and societal needs.

"Protecting the Poor: A microinsurance compendium, volume II", is a unique collection of recent practices and emerging ideas in microinsurance. It covers the numerous innovations that have emerged in recent years to meet the challenges of providing insurance to low-income people, from new products and delivery channels to consumer education tools, while examining institutional changes in regulations, providers and schemes. 
Offering a synthesis of new trends and practices in the growing market of microinsurance, this volume will be an invaluable resource for policy-makers and practitioners alike.

This report identifies three business benefits of empowering women and outlines the steps which should be taken by forward-thinking companies who want to maximise the opportunities for women in emerging markets.

This paper examines how the corporate sector can play a positive role in international development. It outlines two components needed to do so: (1) a regulatory and legal framework that facilitates corporate investment and activity, and (2) structures to harness corporations and corporate behaviour that provide the greatest development benefits and that marginalise the corporations and behaviour that damage development.

This paper discusses the insertion of small and medium-sized producers in national, regional and international high-value agriculture value chains. It identifies four major constraints that limit producers competitiveness, and it examines how project interventions, by overcoming these constraints, can improve competitiveness factors and ensure that producers’ inclusion in the value chain is based on a viable business case, rather than corporate social responsibility.

Este documento, elaborado como tesis de maestría, analiza el encadenamiento productivo que se generó en caso de negocio inclusivo de la empresa brasileña Natura, la cual elabora productos cosméticos a partir de elementos naturales.

This report outlines the roadmap of the World Economic Forum to realizing a New Vision for Agriculture. It highlights the contributions the private sector can make to implementing sustainable agriculture systems globally.

This article describes how Bangladesh’s Rural Sales Program is moving towards a scalable rural sales agent model for distributing socially beneficial goods to the poor.

This article discusses why corporations are giving up on pursuing growth and profits from BOP markets. It reviews this corporate disconnect from a macro, meso and micro-level and provides suggestions on what needs to happen to reverse this trend.