Is corporate collaboration the key to solving our high street’s ethical fashion dilemma?
Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which include halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education in time for 2015 – promoting gender equality and empowering women comes third on the list.
This traditionally low-priority issue ranks so highly in our development goals because women in the workplace equates to social equality and justice, but its importance is actually far more significant.
National economic development, business growth through female led companies, increased small / mid size businesses (SMEs), market diversification and a creation of wealth that can infiltrate families, communities and even continents are just some of the resulting phenomena.
As Penny Fowler, Head of Private Sector Advocacy at Oxfam, points out:
'Gender inequality is the biggest barrier to poverty eradication worldwide. There is a direct correlation between equal opportunities and strong economies across the globe.'
Earlier this week I was lucky enough to listen to Penny speak along with Dr Susan Mboya at the Business Fights Poverty seminar on advancing Gender Equality through Business and Partnership. Dr Mboya is Group Director of Eurasia Africa Women’s Economic Empowerment for the Coca-Cola Company.
Now here is a brand that’s been around the block a few times. Two-thirds of Coca-Cola consumers are women and in Africa the vast majority of transactions take place via small businesses run by women. In Ghana 70% of all sales take place through female-run small businesses (Coca-Cola Africa Foundation Community publication, Issue 04).
Coca-Cola understand that for their brand to be truly empowered then the women who sell their product and consume their product must also be empowered. The logic is surprisingly simple.
Coca-Cola’s ‘5 BY 20’ initiative is committed to empowering 5 million women by 2020, connecting female entrepreneurs with what they require in order to succeed. This breaks down into several categories.
• Access to retail assets such as chillers
• Access to technology such as solar panels and electronic billing
• Access to business skill training to grow their business
• Access to finance using the IFC to underwrite loans at the local level to reduce interest rates
• Access to a mentor and peers
The concept that Coca-Cola have so expertly grasped is that if they are to reach their own business vision of doubling servings from 1.5 billion (yes billion) per day in 2010 to 3 billion by 2020, then they need to find new ways of creating sustainable business. Coca-Cola has seen proven results that women have a lower failure rate in business, as they tend to reinvest considerably more in their businesses and in the social cohesion of their staff. They are also indispensable in distributing the product in otherwise inaccessible areas (Coca-Cola Africa Foundation Community publication, Issue 04).
Speaking at the same event Marie Staunton, CEO of Plan UK, explained how chocolate brands such as Nestlé are reaping the rewards of a recent initiative in Pakistan, where women run 93% of agriculture. Unsupported, these women have historically had to sell their produce on to middle men who take advantage of the situation by marking up the price and watering down the product. Plan has given these women access to the tools needed to sell directly to the brand at a higher price, but with superior quality. Nestlé achieves a better product at the same cost and the women are able to reinvest their tri-fold profit. Their status within the home begins to rise as they provide for their families reliably and effectively. Convergence is the ultimate result, which means that this story replicates and strengthens for generations to come.
Marie points out we desperately need developing economies to grow to achieve economic stability in the rest of the world, a point corroborated by Bill Gates in his recent report for the G20 summit. She comments on the need for persistence and the vital role of the corporate to look beyond what has always been done and look at how things could be done for the benefit of both the producer and consumer.
This got me thinking. What better vehicle could exist to achieve this 'top 3' MDG than bringing about effective legislation in the garment industry?
The garment industry accounts for 78% of Bangladesh’s economy and 85% of the workers are women – mostly rural migrants who have never had access to education. Many of these women have virtually no knowledge about their rights or how to succeed and develop their careers in the workplace. Could the high street learn a thing or two from these emerging collaborations?
Rob Schuham of Common believes collaboration is the new competition – sustainable capitalism where every part of the machine profits. A collaborative brand opens up its value and shares it with its customer, its stakeholders, and its future generations. If Coca-Cola has been around for 120 years and yet half its market capitalisation appears to be made up of brand value, don’t our dearly beloved high street chains have some value to share out?
Retailers such as Gap, Timberland, M&S and Wal-Mart have all taken steps to collaborate with and empower women, mainly through education and training. The immediate results include women:
• Demonstrating more willingness to take on responsibilities
• Assuming leadership roles
• Communicating more effectively at work and at home
• Showing improved ability to solve workplace problems
• Being better able to support their peers
• Gaining more respect from their family members
• Inevitably feeling more respect for themselves
Increased productivity, superior quality control, and a happy, healthy workforce giving back to their communities outside of the workplace, means no sacrifice is needed from the retailers – just a respectful sharing of expertise and resources.
Women currently influence over 70% of global household purchases, with 40% of the global workforce being made up of women (Coca-Cola Africa Foundation Community publication, Issue 04). There is an enormous well of talent and resource out there that if nurtured thoughtfully, could grow a ripple effect of positive change throughout the global economy.
We’ve written recently about the global population ticking over 7 billion this year. Forecast to reach 9 billion by mid-century, our team at the Global Poverty Project are often asked, “How is the world going to cope with having so many people? Won’t having fewer poor people damage the environment?”
Mark Lynas picks up these questions in his challenging new book, The God Species. Starting with the idea that humans have altered our planet so fundamentally so as to create a new geological era – the Anthropocene – Lynas outlines nine planetary boundaries which we must respect if we’re to ensure that humanity can continue to flourish.
At first glance, this is an environmental book, not one about extreme poverty. But at its core, it’s about how humanity, and in particular the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us, will survive and thrive over the next century.
Taking a couple of the boundaries as an example, it’s clear to see how these issues connect back to extreme poverty:
• Climate Change Boundary. We’ve written before about how climate change is already hitting the world’s poorest first and hardest, even though they did the least to cause it. They live in the most vulnerable locations – arid areas increasingly prone to droughts, low-lying areas prone to floods, and the world’s poor often lack the capital and infrastructure to respond as the climate changes.
• Nitrogen Boundary. Nitrogen has fueled the green revolution and the world’s ability to feed itself, and as the world adds 2 billion people (many of whom will be eating more meat) in the next 40 years, managing its use will become increasing important. Lynas takes a swipe at the organic farming movement, and those opposed to GM-foods, citing increased efficiency in industrial farming methods as perhaps the best way to safely feed the world’s population.
• Freshwater Boundary. Balancing the needs of human populations – for drinking, agriculture, industry - and the environment for fresh water is pondered at length. Lynas argues that technological innovation and effectively managed markets hold the answers to overcoming the challenge that is 850 million people currently lacking access to clean drinking water, and the increasing need for food production in coming years.
• Aerosols Boundary. Lynas outlines how emissions from dirty fuels not only contribute to climate change, but damage the health of millions. And, many of these emissions are caused by the cooking habits of the world’s poorest – “Indoor smoke pollution from old-style stoves or open fires burning wood, dung or coal kills 1.6 million people a year due to respiratory infections worsened by smoke inhalation; India alone suffers as many as half a million premature deaths.”
For a book about complex scientific issues, The God Species is highly readable, and unlike many books of its genre, it eschews the temptation to scream that we’re all going to die. Instead, it offers some sober and optimist ideas on what can be done to ensure that all humans, both present and future, can live safely and happily on our planet.
Earlier in the year we debated two consumer giving projects, Project Repat and TOMS Shoes, to discuss whether their business models promote good aid practices. Both have made recent additions to their businesses, so we want to see if these changes will change our views.
Project Repat
For those who didn’t read the first blog, Project Repat purchases secondhand t-shirts that have been sent to Kenya from local markets and then rebrands and resells them in the US to support development projects back in Kenya. Now they’ve launched their No More New product line as part of their Kickstarter Campaign that ends on the 16th December. The campaign is asking backers to pay $30 to help fund their next trip to Kenya, and in turn they receive a choice of one of the items they bring back as they work to standardise their product line with their small business partners on the ground in Nairobi.
Our biggest concern with their business model before was whether or not it was scalable and sustainable. This new move to support and train small business owners and local artisans in Kenya (mostly women) to make new products made entirely out of secondhand t-shirts is definitely a step in the right direction of scaling up and creating sustainability. It also allows the community to be involved and drive their own change as active participants in the business.
TOMS
TOMS was originally just a company that for every pair of shoes it sold would give another pair of shoes to a child in need. Now they’ve expanded their business to include eyewear.
I know what you’re thinking – does that mean for every pair of sunglasses they sell they give a new pair of sunglasses to a child in need? Thankfully, no. For every pair sold, TOMS provides medical treatment for sight-threatening conditions, prescription glasses or sight-saving surgery in Nepal, Cambodia and Tibet. You can find out more about their new eyewear model on their website.
With their shoe business model, our biggest complaint was that although the “one for one” idea is effective for consumers, it’s not as beneficial for the recipients. The shoes are still just another handout and this model creates dependency on TOMS to continuously supply these children with new shoes as they wear out or grow out of the old ones. Simply giving away shoes fails to create any sustainable development or growth for the community.
This new eyewear business model still falls short of creating sustainable development, but it does create more long-term benefits for the individuals receiving treatment or surgery. As it says in the video, the majority of blinding conditions in developing countries are either preventable or curable so they are helping support these communities that currently lack access to treatment services.
So what do you think of these new additions to Project Repat and TOMS? Are these promoting good aid practices?
Corruption. It is a one of the biggest barriers to ending extreme poverty and prevents genuine sustainable development. Although it is a worldwide phenomenon, it has a particularly devastating impact on those that are most vulnerable.
In order to access basic services such as security, health, and education, many communities in the developing countries need to rely on the government and public services. Corruption in these public institutions worsens the already heavy economic burden of people with low levels of income and living in extreme poverty. Corruption hinders the ability of the impoverished population to break out of the poverty cycle, and diverts critical resources away from development projects.
The East African Bribery Index launched in October this year by Transparency International demonstrates the extent to which corruption penetrates into critical public institutions and provides an insight as to why so few people have reported cases of corruption.
Out of all the institutions that were indicated to have been involved in corruption, either through implicit or explicit demands, the law enforcement sector emerged as the most bribery prone sector across Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. As the report concludes, the police and the revenue authorities across the region have dominated the top positions.
It is shocking to think that an institution that is supposed to tackle crime and injustice commits these acts itself. Who then can the people turn to when they encounter unreasonable demands in exchange for public services that they are entitled to?
A more shocking result from the report is the number of cases of corruption that are actually reported. In Tanzania, only 6.9% of the respondents who experienced a bribery demand have reported the cases, and this figure drops to a mere 3.2% in Burundi. It is not surprising given the level of corruption within the law enforcement sector.
Some of the most commonly cited reasons for not reporting cases of corruption are lack of faith in the government to actually react to these reports, lack of knowledge and information as to where and how to report these cases, and fear of intimidation. In such a climate of insecurity and fear, corruption is thus allowed to flourish and continuously erode the potential of both the government and its citizens. The lack of faith in the government is an important social consequence that can severely hinder progress and sustainable development. In addition, donor countries will be more doubtful towards funding development projects in countries with a high prevalence of corruption.
To combat corruption in the public sector, it is critical to ensure the people see reporting corruption as worthwhile. The first step in encouraging people to report cases of corruption is to strengthen the credibility of public institutions. Given the prevalence of corruption in the law enforcement sector, this is an immensely difficult task, but by no means impossible.
Transparency International has published a Working Paper on Making Government Anti-Corruption Hotlines Effective and proposes several strategies for combating corruption. Other than recommending functional and organizational changes, the paper emphasizes on the importance of being able to report cases anonymously and having explicit government support for tackling corruption in the country.
Referring back to the East African Bribery Index, in Uganda 61.1% of people felt that the government is not committed to the fight against corruption. Restoring people’s faith in the government and public institutions is critical.
Corruption can mean the difference between life and death. In a society where services such as security, health care, and education can only be bought with money, corruption has penetrated into every aspect of people’s lives. But by empowering people to stand up against corruption, this is a war we can win.
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October’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) heralded important progress in the fight against polio, for a number of reasons: one of which has managed to fly below the radar.
The morning after The End of Polio Concert, at a Special Press Conference called to discuss polio eradication, five world leaders together with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, pledged an additional $118 million to global polio eradication efforts: providing crucial funding which will help the Global Polio Eradication Initiative purchase much needed vaccines; identify, respond to, and mitigate new outbreaks of this debilitating disease.
But this press conference also featured a second, equally important, non-monetary commitment, when the leaders of Nigeria and Pakistan – two of the remaining four endemic countries – affirmed their commitment to addressing the spread of polio in their communities.
President Jonathan of Nigeria promised the world “that in the next two years, we will eradicate polio”, and Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan pledged that his Government would utilise all possible resources regarding polio eradication – commitments that will be absolutely critical to the success of eradication efforts – and to progress in the broader fight to stop preventable disease and tackle extreme poverty.
Although less likely to make the headlines, strong political buy-in and leadership is just as crucial as funding when it comes to the achievement of eradication targets. This highlighted in one of the most significant polio success stories of recent times: India.
India is considered a ‘perfect storm’ when it comes to the spread of polio: birth rates are high, populations are dense, and sanitation is terrible. These conditions make it ripe for polio to spread. But despite these challenges, by getting local officials involved in vaccination efforts, India has made such incredible progress tackling the disease that not a single case of polio has been reported in the country since January this year – offering the very real possibility that India will be considered polio free within the next few years.
Strong national and local leadership is also referenced as one of the key factors that has helped Nigeria achieve its remarkable reduction of polio by 95% since 2009.
While they don’t attract the fanfare of a multi-million dollar commitment, October’s CHOGM commitments will be key to advancing the fight against polio. In fact, we’re already seeing them take effect: since Prime Minister Gilani’s announcement, Government officials who fail to meet performance targets in Pakistan’s eradication program have been threatened with tough action, and chief ministers and other local leaders have been urged to make polio eradication a priority.
This high level leadership is crucial to achieving eradication goals, particularly in Pakistan, which has the highest number of polio cases amongst the four remaining polio endemic countries. And achieving further buy in from local leaders will also be critical. Indeed, according to the World Health Organisation’s analysis, it may be a game changer, with findings suggesting low levels of viral persistence correlate with high levels of local leadership.
As Former British PM Tony Blair recently pointed out in the Washington Post, effective development “requires action on all sides.”
That’s why here at the Global Poverty Project we will celebrate October’s important political commitment, and continue to campaign for both financial and political action. We’ll also continue to campaign for systemic change on trade and governance rules – to ensure that governments are held to account for their promises and commitments to their citizens.
We’ve written recently about the global population ticking over 7 billion this year. Forecast to reach 9 billion by mid-century, our team at the Global Poverty Project are often asked, “How is the world going to cope with having so many people? Won’t having fewer poor people damage the environment?”
