Category: Private Sector

Employment, Français, Migration, New social contract, Private Sector

Migration et travail en Suisse: pour une gouvernance partagée entre le public et le privé

Par Marco Taddei, Union patronale Suisse

Dans la période difficile que nous traversons, un défi majeur se présente à nous : l’impact de la crise du COVID-19 sur les entreprises. Le Coronavirus marque le retour des frontières dans le monde. La tentation du repli national est forte. Et la Suisse n’y échappe pas. Pendant plusieurs semaines, nos frontières, terrestres et aériennes, ont été fermées. Cependant, avec plus de 30 000 frontaliers français travaillant dans le domaine de la santé en Suisse, il s’agit justement de l’ouverture de notre marché du travail qui s’est révélée être un atout précieux. En cette période de crise sanitaire, que feraient nos hôpitaux et nos cliniques sans cette main-d’œuvre?

Continue reading “Migration et travail en Suisse: pour une gouvernance partagée entre le public et le privé”

Development Matters
Building resilience, Covid-19, Private Sector

COVID-19: Can corporates be leaders in community support?

By Mr. V S Parthasarathy, President, Mobility Services Sector, Mahindra Group; Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.; President, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

shutterstock_109766645It is invigorating to see people, communities and organisations across the world answer the clarion call to provide support to those in need. We are seeing waves of good news roll in – from students driving out to show their appreciation to teachers, to families standing outside hospitals to thank front line medical staff.

Corporations have also pitched in to help governments and citizens fight the coronavirus pandemic. Many businesses are using their resources and expertise to shape their response. T-Mobile partnered with Verizon, AT&T, and iHeartMedia to donate nearly 40,000 phone chargers to hospitals in the US for isolated patients to stay connected to loved ones. Subaru has partnered with Feeding America to help provide 50 million meals nationwide to people impacted by COVID-19. The Tata Group pledged Rs 1,500 cr towards relief funds. 3M, Prada, Gucci, Tesla, Ford, Apple, the maker of Absolut Vodka and Jameson Irish Whiskey, owner of Zara, and many other businesses, have converted production lines to manufacture short-supplied personal protective gear and medical supplies. In short, they are stepping far beyond their ordinary workflow.

To respond, adapt and recover from this crisis, I believe companies ought to focus on three basic fronts.

Continue reading “COVID-19: Can corporates be leaders in community support?”

Development Matters
Development finance, Green transition, Private Sector, SDGs

Why should investors care about ocean health?

by Dennis Fritsch, PhD, Researcher, Responsible Investor

This blog is part of the
OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference

Ocean health

“The World’s Oceans Are in Trouble. And So Are Humans, Warns U.N. Report” – a blaring headline in Time Magazine just after the IPCC published their landmark report Oceans and the Cryosphere in September 2019. It highlights what scientists and NGOs have been shouting from the rooftops for years: human activity has put the global ocean in a dire state and by doing so is endangering planetary life as we know it. But how has it come this far? In addition to producing over half of the oxygen we breathe, being the largest carbon sink on the planet and a haven for biodiversity, a healthy ocean is a source of economic livelihoods for billions of people. The value of global ocean assets is estimated at over USD 24 trillion[1] making it the 7th largest economy in the world in GDP terms. Due to its integral role in the global financial and environmental ecosystems, the ocean is high on the international policy agenda[2] and its importance continues to grow. The global ‘Blue Economy’ is expected to expand at twice the rate of the mainstream economy until 2030[3], and already contributes USD 2.5 trillion a year in economic output. Continue reading “Why should investors care about ocean health?”

Lia Beyeler
Development finance, Private Sector, SDGs

How Blended Finance Can Plug The SDG Financing Gap

By Jean-Philippe de Schrevel, Founder and Managing Partner of Bamboo Capital Partners

This blog is part of the
OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference

Greenlight planet - Shopkeeper

We now have just 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To date, the SDGs have been underfinanced. The annual financing gap to achieve the SDGs by 2030 currently sits at USD 2.5 trillion. The current approach is not working. Historically, financial institutions have focused on financing one or two SDGs in isolation, and this funding is often directed towards relatively low-risk investments. Collectively, we need to reconsider how we can realistically finance the SDGs by 2030, and this is where blended finance impact investment vehicles have an opportunity to shine.

Continue reading “How Blended Finance Can Plug The SDG Financing Gap”

Lia Beyeler1 Comment
Private Sector

The Human-Centred Business Model: An Innovative Ecosystem for Sustainable Development

LJD

By Federico Bonaglia, Deputy Director, OECD Development Centre, and Marco Nicoli, Special Advisor to the Director of the OECD Development Centre

This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). The HCBM seeks to develop an innovative – human-centred – business model based on a common, holistic and integrated set of economic, social, environmental and ethical rights-based principles.
Read more about the HCBM here, and check out an event about it here

The HCBM project originated in 2015 within the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD’s Development Centre.

business-sustainability.jpgMany argue that current public policies and business practices are not delivering widespread prosperity for people and the planet (Wolf). During the last ten years, the OECD has gathered a significant body of evidence on the increased inequalities of income and opportunities in many countries. The top 20% of the income distribution earns 9 times more on average than the bottom 20%. The distribution of wealth is even more unequal, with the top 20% keeping half, while the bottom 40% holds only 3%. Corporate profits are at historic highs in many countries: shareholder payouts hit a new record in 2018 as global dividend payments neared the USD 500 billion mark.[1] Simultaneously, median wages and living standards continue to stagnate, productivity growth falters in many countries and whole swathes of citizens are excluded from contributing to, and benefiting from, economic prosperity. Our economic system continues to wreak incredible environmental destruction, the costs of which disproportionately fall on the poor and vulnerable in addition to the planet’s flora and fauna. As United Nations Secretary General Guterres recently stated, “we are losing the race against climate change. Our world is off-track in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals”. Continue reading “The Human-Centred Business Model: An Innovative Ecosystem for Sustainable Development”

Development Matters
Africa, Data, Employment, Food security, Gender, Women and Girls, Human Development, Infrastructure, Policy, Private Sector, Trade, Youth

The food economy can create more jobs for West African youth

By Léopold Ghins and Koffi Zougbédé, OECD Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat 

Français suit

Youth employment and job creation loom high on development agendas in West Africa. The issue is also a priority at the continental and international levels: decent work and youth empowerment are priority areas within the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and ‘youth and jobs in the Sahel’ will figure prominently amongst talks at the G7 Summit which begins this Saturday in Biarritz.

Such policy focus is necessary in view of the demographic realities in the region. Although unemployment is low overall, informality remains prevalent, and growing numbers of young people struggle to access attractive training or sources of income. West African economies need to create more and better jobs. Yet, from a policy perspective, how to support decent and inclusive job creation is not always clear. Trade-offs in public resource allocations across sectors and information gaps abound.

In this context, what and where are the opportunities for policymakers willing to address the challenge of decent job creation?

Continue reading “The food economy can create more jobs for West African youth”
Lia Beyeler4 Comments
Gender, Women and Girls, Human Development, Policy, Private Sector, Social Protection

The Case for Gender-Smart Work Policies: Key to Equality, Good for Business

LJD

By Sandie Okoro, Senior Vice President and World Bank Group General Counsel

This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). This blog is also part of a special series marking the launch of the updated 2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)

We have witnessed numerous efforts to enhance gender equality throughout the past decade. Legal reforms are taking place worldwide, and discriminatory laws are slowly being struck down in favour of parity.[1] But despite developments in employment laws, inequality persists. Women’s labour participation has been stagnant, and last year, the already low number of female CEOs tumbled even further.[2] As the provider of 90% of jobs worldwide,[3] the private sector plays a significant role in the push for gender equality in employment. By adopting gender-smart policies, companies may be able to fill the gaps unaddressed by laws and minimise the impacts of inequality in the workplace. Although not all women work in these institutions, such policies are nonetheless impactful for those who do and could set in motion a new and replicable culture of work – one that is both business-smart and more gender-inclusive.

Continue reading “The Case for Gender-Smart Work Policies: Key to Equality, Good for Business”
Lia Beyeler2 Comments
Private Sector

Should firms in developing countries pursue independent R&D or adopt technology to innovate?

By Dai Jianjun and Yang Jianlong, Policy Research and Advice, OECD Development Centre (on secondment from the Development Research Center of the State Council of China)

Research-and-developmentInnovation promotes the global economy’s sustained growth, and innovation in developing countries can be achieved through two main means: independent research and development (R&D) or technology adoption. It is generally believed that developing countries can achieve development at a lower cost and faster by adopting technology. Even though enterprises are subject to certain restrictions in their technology adoption, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&As) that may be rejected due to national security factors, is it still relevant to depend on the adoption of technology for innovation to achieve continuous development?

To help answer this question, two companies in China, Huawei and Lenovo, offer perspectives in analysing different innovation models and their achievements. Both companies are engaged in the information technology industry and were established basically around the same time in the 1980s, experiencing first-hand the process of China’s implementation of the reform and opening-up policy to achieve economic catch-up. Currently, both are Fortune 500 companies, leading in their segmentation and having adopted different innovative approaches. Given the good comparability between the two companies, they offer relevant inspiration and analysis on innovation strategies and performance. How?

Continue reading “Should firms in developing countries pursue independent R&D or adopt technology to innovate?”

Development Matters
Policy, Private Sector

Creating value and doing good: Governance solutions for sustainable enterprises

LJD

By Professor Andrea Zorzi, University of Florence

This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). The HCMB seeks to develop an innovative – human-centred – business model
based on a common, holistic and integrated set of economic, social, environmental and ethical rights-based principles. Read more about the HCBM here, and check out an event about it here
The HCBM project originated in 2015 within the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD’s Development Centre.

BWO_038

Charitable institutions are an established concept. So is the concept of cooperatives that advance some social goals through business activities. What is relatively new, however, are two related ideas: one is the idea that the pursuit of social goals is the business itself, and the other that the business pursuit of social goals does not mean giving up profits.

In the past decade, many initiatives burgeoned to give legal form to social business. It was necessary before to adapt the legal structures of for-profit companies to not-only-for-profit goals. Adapted standards, however, may not always be effective or may expose entities to legal risks. Now, many jurisdictions provide legal forms for ‘social enterprises’, which are generally expected to pursue only ‘social, environmental or community objectives’, rather than both for- and not-for-profit goals and to reinvest most of their profits.[1] The most important difference between social enterprises and other non-profits is that social goals are pursued by carrying out the business rather than giving out money, goods and services to the needy.
Continue reading “Creating value and doing good: Governance solutions for sustainable enterprises”

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Private Sector

Transforming the Businesses that are Transforming our World

LJD

By Dr Isabella D. Bunn, Research Fellow in Governance and Global Ethics, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford

This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). The HCMB seeks to develop an innovative – human-centred – business model
based on a common, holistic and integrated set of economic, social, environmental and ethical rights-based principles. Read more about the HCBM here, and check out an event about it here
The HCBM project originated in 2015 within the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD’s Development Centre.

 

Mario-KantsukeThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – under the banner of transforming our world – is a call to action. All countries and all stakeholders are invited to implement this agenda, including the private sector. In fact, the 2030 Agenda acknowledges that ‘’private business activity, investment and innovation are major drivers of productivity, inclusive economic growth and job creation. We call on all businesses to apply their creativity and innovation to solving sustainable development challenges’’ [§67].

But, how is business responding? Around the world, companies of all sizes and sectors are forging new strategies and collaborations to help realise the SDGs. Organisations such as the UN Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development offer practical guidance. The UN Development Programme identifies potential projects through its “Business Call to Action.” Multiple institutions are shaping mechanisms for green finance. Further impetus comes from the business case for the SDGs; the Business and Sustainable Development Commission confirms the multi-trillion dollar scale of this opportunity.

The scope of private sector actions, bolstered by diverse partnerships, is impressive. Yet, advancing sustainable development will depend on more than what business might do. It will also depend on what business might become. Thus, the real opportunity is for policy makers, business leaders and other stakeholders to leverage the 2030 Agenda to create lasting change within the private sector itself. Consider the following five themes as potential leverage points for change. Continue reading “Transforming the Businesses that are Transforming our World”

Development Matters1 Comment