Publication database

The report starts by outlining the current state of impact measurement and management. It goes on to shed light on the BCtA’s member companies’ commitments to the SDGs, their adoption of the Inclusive Business model, their engagement with low-income populations in developing countries, and to highlight the main challenges faced by these organizations in measuring and managing impact. It also outlines how Inclusive Businesses can manage their impact on the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), leading to enhanced quality of life and increased living standards for their stakeholders.

This report reflects on the position of social enterprise across 27 countries, across 5 continents and including both developed and developing, stable and fragile countries. It aims to bring evidence together to provide comparisons between social enterprises across the globe, to highlight commonalities and differences, patterns and challenges. This study also considers the policy and support ecosystems for social enterprise in many countries, draws conclusions and makes recommendations based on the evidence.

Increasingly, development funding is directed to programmes aiming to make market systems more favourable for smallholders and low-income consumers of food. Assessing whether a programme indeed contributed to development outcomes is challenging. Building on real-world experiences with theory-based evaluation in inclusive business programmes, this IDS Bulletin discusses approaches and methods for meaningful impact evaluation. 

Most impact investors report meeting or exceeding their impact performance metrics, but is this truly the case? Maoz (Michael) Brown, head of research at the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, collaborated with Wharton PhD candidate Lauren Kaufmann on a study that reveals it is common practice for impact investors to report metrics primarily to market their success, rather than to evaluate and understand where their impact may fall short.

This report summarises the main elements to be taken into account to measure and manage impact throughout the investment strategy and the investment process, linking each phase to the relevant steps of the EVPA five-step framework. To clarify how the EVPA five-step process and other IMM initiatives are linked and complement each other, this publication also refers to different principles or standards throughout the investment journey, such as the Dimensions of impact of the Impact Management Project, the Operating Principles of Impact Management, the Principles of Social Value and the SDG Impact Standards.

Based on an analysis of the CGAP’s data from national surveys of smallholder households and smallholder diaries, this paper outlines the profile and needs of smallholder families and their various subgroups. Firstly, the paper looks at the relationship between financial activities and the different livelihood strategies employed by smallholder families. Further, it highlights the characteristics and behaviors that are common to large groups of smallholders, discusses how the overall market can be segmented most effectively, and presents a nuanced picture of the different types of smallholder households. Finally, the paper discusses opportunities available for various stakeholders serving smallholder families.

The report also the enormous potential to invest for impact in public equity markets. According to the report, impact investing in private markets could be as large as $2.1 trillion in assets under management, but only a quarter of that, $505 billion, is clearly measured for its impact, both for development impact and financial returns. The publication includes trends in impact investing, survey results of investor practices, and 32 case stories from signatories to the Operating Principles for Impact Management on how they are implementing them.

This final factsheet of GCP project “Local and International business collaboration for productivity and Quality Improvement in Dairy chains in SE Asia and East Africa (LIQUID). It provides insights into power balances in formal and informal dairy value chains as related to the inclusive development effects of milk quality improvement activities can be considered as the .

The study identified and reviewed 36 cases of inclusive business models in aquaculture value chains in low-income countries. The team analysed the economic and social upgrading objectives of each of the models and how they led to, or inhibited, developmental outcomes.