Publication database

This white paper seeks to articulate the impacts of connectivity and propose a framework of financial, social and economic key performance indicators for the last-mile connectivity (LMC) sector, in order to ultimately drive investments in the sector. The purpose of the framework is to illuminate impact pathways that link investments in LMC enterprises to positive development outcomes.

This report is primarily written for business and its role in supporting education and the SDGs. It is also meant to support the education community and other organisations with a stake in advancing education and training for sustainable development. The report shares a selection of good practice examples and insights that are intended to help raise awareness, spark new ideas and inspire more opportunities for collaboration. The project was led by Business Fights Poverty, Pearson, Arizona State University and PRME, an initiative of the United Nations Global Compact.

The report provides insights into the state of inclusive business in the Philippines, the level of awareness about IB among companies and the IB policy environment. It introduces IB opportunities across four sectors: food and agribusiness, skills building and education, infrastructure and financial services.

The objective of this research report is to help practitioners understand what systems change means in the context of social entrepreneurship, how it is distinct from direct service or business-in-a-box models and, most importantly, what it looks like in practice. It focuses on concrete activities, processes, and leadership lessons. It also explains, how system theories can be applied across a range of circumstances.

This study focuses on 12 skills delivery initiatives led by the private sector and carried out to support the national skills mission of the Government of India. The objective of this study is to generate lessons learnt from India’s experience in skilling, namely to identify and analyse impactful business models and their practices and innovations, to highlight challenges, and to provide insights on how the private sector could contribute even more to skills acquisition and employability.

Angkor Mikroheranhvatho Kampuchea (AMK) participated in the ILO Microfinance for Decent Work (MF4DW) action research from 2008-2012. As part of this global experimental research, AMK introduced a financial education programme in two rural branches. The programme aimed to address challenges that clients faced in regard to the risk management strategies they use and their levels of indebtedness. The impact of the financial education programme on clients’ financial attitude and behaviour, risk management strategies, asset building, over-indebtedness and multiple borrowing, and vulnerability, was measured employing a difference-in-difference methodology. The econometric analysis is based on a balanced three-wave panel data set with target and control groups. It shows that AMK’s financial education programme had the strongest impact on the repayment behaviour of clients with a significant reduction of 3.4 per cent in late repayments. The innovation also had significant and positive impact on asset building outcome variables such as insurance take-up with a 10 per cent increase. The programme positively influenced financial attitude as shown by a significant decrease in client belief that it is impossible to save, clients’ association of savings and security increasing by 1 per cent as well as changing attitudes towards borrowing. However, the analysis also shows insignificant and/or unexpected results for other outcome variables, which may be due to some issues with the experimental design of the research and the survey instrument. It is therefore possible that the innovation may have had a stronger impact than actually measured and reported in this document.

Index-based insurance is an innovative financial service that can help smallholder farmers manage some of the risks related to weather conditions. Considering the lessons and insights gathered from index insurance and financial education projects, as well as from the field of behavioural economics, the Global Action Network to advance agriculture insurance (GAN), coordinated by the International Labour Organisation’s Impact Insurance Facility and supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has worked to put together guidelines for index insurance education to support the industry to deal with this task.

This compendium of case studies featuring Public-Private Partnerships, this is a first attempt by the UNECE to generate interest in the SDGs through real projects that made a difference in their respective communities.

This paper provides a quantitative and qualitative presentation of USAID’s public-private partnerships and business sector participation in those PPPs. The analysis offered here is based on USAID’s PPP data set covering 2001-2014 and interviews with executives of 17 U.S. corporations that have engaged in PPPs with USAID.

This report provides insights on the impact enterprise landscape in East Africa. The report identifies three different categories of impact enterprises: Access enterprises provide critical products and services among the low income and underserved population. Ability enterprises increase their capacity to earn higher incomes through skilling or by engaging with them as partners. Lastly, Knowledge enterprises build awareness and markets, and encourage behaviour change.