Economic Empowerment

What gift would you give for the holidays that costs $56? Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci lived on $56 for 56 days in Guatemala and filmed Living on One Dollar, a documentary that has raised over $300,000 for Whole Planet Foundation, funding 1,600 microloans for Guatemalans living in poverty.

Microensurer Cebuana Lhuillier Insurance Solutions (CLIS) has joined Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to increase the number of Filipinos covered by microinsurance from 6 million in 2016 to 8 million in 2020, expanding insurance coverage to 60 percent of the country’s population.

According to the Better Business Better World report by the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, achieving the Global Goals could open up an estimated US$12 trillion in market opportunities in four economic systems: food and agriculture, cities, energy and materials, and health and well-being. They represent around 60 percent of the real economy and are critical to delivering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Working in communities across the country, the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund is implementing programs and training leaders to help expand access to financial services and education for unbanked and underbanked individuals.

Latin America’s rising demand for natural gas presents broad opportunities across the industry. While these opportunities may be most acutely present in Mexico — where a steadily growing economy is catalyzing soaring natural gas imports from the United States — conditions across the region reflect positive trends for U.S. producers and midstream players. Emerging markets are eager to tap U.S. supplies and seize on natural gas’s potential as a low cost, reliable and cleaner power generation source.

We joined the Barclays Accelerator programme because we knew we could learn so much from them. There was no point just staying on our start-up island, and dreaming up fancy visions, we needed to get out of our comfort zone and engage with the big players in the market. It was important to us that we had our methods challenged by the bank. That’s how we created the magic.

Visa has made a three-year financial commitment to help the Universal Postal Union, which is the primary forum for cooperation in the global postal system, advance financial inclusion through its new Financial Inclusion Technical Assistance Facility. Of the world’s 661,000 post offices, 91 percent offer some form of financial services, and the UPU aims to increase the number of payment accounts held by posts by 250 million by 2020.

Corporate leaders from iconic U.S. companies will explore their efforts to help decarbonize the American economy at the U.S. Business Showcase hosted in the U.S. Climate Action Center at COP23 in Bonn, Germany. 2017 has been a remarkable year for business climate action.

Dr. Stuart Cowan will join the senior management team and lead Capital Institute's efforts to grow an international network of place-based regenerative community hubs. Hubs will receive support to nurture a launch team, tell their stories and share their lessons, map their regenerative assets, measure key indicators, create an action plan, implement key regenerative projects, and access regenerative investment capital.