SDG 1

No Poverty

WHAT’s THIS ABOUT?

1 in 10 people still live in extreme poverty and billions more fail to earn enough to meet the basic needs of their families. Many people remain trapped in poverty due to factors out of their control.

Reducing poverty is not just about increasing income. It means ensuring everyone is safe from unjust human rights violations, can access basic services and have equal access to resources to build wealth. The most vulnerable need our help to become more resilient to climatic, social and economic shocks.

Businesses have an enormous opportunity to contribute to ending global poverty. They can adopt business models to meet underserved needs and make their and services accessible to the poor.

All businesses can benefit from increased productivity by making sure their employees can enjoy decent living conditions and are more resilient against life’s hazards and local or global shocks.

Choose your impact opportunities

IO1 SUPPORT LIVING WAGES

  • Many workers still struggle to meet their basic needs and those of their families. Their wages, social benefits and any in-kind earnings fail to guarantee them  a life in dignity such as nutritious food, clean water, safe housing, mobility, affordable health care, quality education and savings to help their families through possible life hazards and invest to uplift their livelihoods. Having a job alone does not guarantee a decent living: 8% of employed workers and their families worldwide still lived in extreme poverty in 2018.1  Many workers find themselves having to take up unattractive jobs that tend to be informal and are characterized by low pay and little or no access to social protection and rights at work.

  • Businesses can commit to paying living wages and offering decent working conditions at their sites and throughout their supply chain.

  • Remuneration is one of the main triggers of increased productivity among the workforce, and employees enjoying better health and living conditions as a result of decent wages and benefits, will be less often sick, reducing thereof health costs on your business, and more committed to remain in their posts and make your business grow. Your efforts can attract young talent to your business who value businesses with social values.

IO2 Enhance Social Protection Systems

  • As many as 4 billion people worldwide lack any form of social protection whatsoever. 2 billion have a low level of protection. This means they lack any safety net to fall back on in case of job loss, illness, old age, or other life shocks.

  • Businesses can offer employee benefits above local legal requirements, ensure that their suppliers do the same for their own employees or have access to the same benefits in the case of freelance workers, and push forward industry best practice in this area.

    They can advocate the reform of social safety nets, including pension systems, to improve protection levels, and develop innovations to improve the management of and access by vulnerable groups to the social protection programmes they are entitled to. Through the full payment of their tax dues in all of their countries of operations, businesses also support governments’ capacities to deploy effective public social protection programmes.

    Businesses can also direct their CSR contributions to supporting civil society and private initiatives (e.g. orphanages and shelters, social reintegration for at-risk youth, senior citizen home support) complementing public social protection programs. 


  • If your company proposes good social protection programmes, you will attract more talents and retain new employees, while reducing staff turnover and absenteeism. By contributing to making societies in your countries of operation less vulnerable to the impact of life hazards on their livelihood, you will also increase your potential customer base as people will feel less vulnerable and have more disposable income to spend on different goods and services.

IO3 INCREASE ACCESS TO BASIC SERVICES

  • People who lack access to safe water and sanitation, safe housing, affordable transport, clean energy, education and health services remain trapped in poverty as they are more subject to higher daily living costs and poor health.

    2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water. 685 million people live without electricity. Around 1.6 billion people worldwide lack adequate housing.

  • Companies can help employees identify and access available public services, especially new employees and at remote sites. They can also offer access to basic services for their employees (and neighbouring communities) at their operating sites, such as for example with drinking water taps, daycares, literacy classes, shuttle buses and more.

    Companies producing supplies, equipment and/or management solutions for basic services can develop innovative affordable technology to increase access by low-income and/or remote communities.

    More broadly,  any type of business can channel its corporate social responsibility contributions towards improving access to basic services.

  • IEmployees with their basic needs better covered will be in better health and spirits, hence more productive. If their access to basic services has improved thanks to the support of your business, they will be more committed to remain working within your company.

    If communities at your operating sites are less deprived in accessing essential services, they will develop faster economically and become as well more employable by your business if you need to expand.

    Reducing inequalities in access to basic services in societies where you are implanted contributes to better social cohesion and lesser chance of social disorders that would negatively affect your market base.

    If your business’s sector lies in one of the basic service areas (water, sanitation, healthcare, education, waste management, mobility, housing  or energy), developing a pro-poor offer of products and services opens up large market opportunities.

IO4 RESPECT COMMUNITY LAND & RESOURCES RIGHTS

  • Too many communities are still forcibly displaced in the name of economic development. Even when communities are consulted and provide free, prior and informed consent for the exploitation of the land and natural resources they live on and from by concerned businesses, they are not necessarily involved later on in key decisions around it nor draw from it sufficient direct positive benefits for their livelihoods.

  • Businesses need to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of communities occupying and living off the land or sea areas where they wish to invest for new business ventures.

    As tainted land deals are still frequent the world over, businesses should follow a human-rights based due diligence process to make sure that themselves, their subsidiaries and business partners avoid resorting to any form of corruption in securing land and natural resource extraction deals.

    Businesses can involve communities in the management of their operations, including by supporting community-based and independent impact monitoring systems, and guarantee that a fair share of the financial returns drawn benefit the local economy.

  • By respecting land and natural resource rights and applying human rights due diligence at all steps of their investment projects, your business not only fulfills a legal duty, but also avoids the potentially-damaging reputational and financial costs of high-profile court cases and global media campaigns against its operations.

    Long delays to launching your new investment project could also happen if you fail to secure FPIC from communities it affects as redress actions against the use of land and natural resources for development can take months if not years to be settled.

    Guaranteeing economic and social benefits to communities in your operating sites will also help build trust and reduce the risks of violent contestations later on, not only locally towards your business.

IO5 INCREASE ACCESS TO FINANCIAL SERVICES

  • Two billion adults - more than half of the world’s working adults - are still excluded from formal financial services. This concerns up to 80% of the poor in developing countries. Access to formal financial services is essential to the ability of individuals and households to manage their lives and build their futures.

  • Businesses can help employees improve their financial literacy and create good money management habits. Businesses have a major role to play in build the financial health of ehtier employees . This includes shifting to depositing salaries in a bank account rather than handing them in cash and helping employees build their savings, for example through pension plan contributions. Businesses can also promote financial inclusion through their supply chains by shifting to formal banking for issuing and receiving payments. 

    Business in the financial services and digital industries can invest in developing pro-poor mobile and online banking services, impact loans, micro-insurance products,  savings funds, affordable and safe remittance services, in order to  meet the unique needs of the unbanked, whether individuals or MSMEs.

  • Financial insecurity takes a toll on your workforce , as employees and suppliers without access to suitable financial services are less prone to building a savings base that can help them through life hazards, are more exposed to exploitative informal money-lenders and at higher risk of being robbed. This can result in higher turnover, absenteeism, breakdown in supply chains and therefore drops in productivity for your company. Because increasing financial inclusion also spurs inclusive growth, your business and the private sector in general will benefit from the increased demand for goods and services that come with it.

IO6 INCREASE DISASTER RESILIENCE

  • Recent years have seen a significant increase in disasters. These include not only natural disasters (e.g. storms, hurricanes and earthquakes) and the effects of climate change,, but also pandemics, industrial accidents and violent conflicts. Economic losses from natural and climatic disasters alone are now running at close to $300 billion a year1 with this being a very conservative estimate.

    Businesses are exposed like the rest of the population to the direct impacts of disasters, such as physical destruction and loss of life or injuries, but face as well a long chain of indirect consequences on their operations, as disasters disrupt their local, national and global supply chains, affects their workforce and markets, increase the cost of their insurance premiums, causes cash flow problems or even closure, and call for costly disaster risk mitigation measures.

  • Businesses can contribute to improving disaster resilience of vulnerable regions and communities, which means pre-empting risks, being better prepared for disaster response and capable of recovering faster, in different ways:

    (i) as providers of products and services, across all sectors of the economy and social life, businesses can shift to materials, technologies business models, that are less vulnerable to disasters and their impacts and allow recovering faster. Insurance companies can make available to more businesses, especially SMEs, appropriate and affordable disaster insurance schemes. 

    (ii) as employers, businesses can train their workforce on reducing risk levels at their workplace and adopting life/business-saving attitudes and practices in case of a disaster. Businesses working in the knowledge industry can also develop new products to disseminate a culture of resilience across all sectors of society.  

    (iii) as managers and customers, businesses can take measures on their operating sites that reduce risks and help return to full production faster after a disaster. Business can also work through their supply chain to extend best practices in this regard to other businesses. 

    (iv) as investors, businesses can support research and innovation in early warning systems, building materials, infrastructure design, access to data for disaster risk and disaster impact mapping, and so forth. Resilient housing is, in particular, a domain necessitating major investments in the years to come.    

    (v) as development actors: business can work with government and civil society in developing disaster risk reduction programmes and disaster response plans, including for the most vulnerable areas and communities in their areas of operation. 

  • The private sector has as much an interest and role as individuals or the public sector in reducing disaster risks and  has a direct influence on a country’s ability to absorb disaster – to return to normal after the shock of an earthquake, flood or tropical storm or other catastrophic event.

    On one hand, by investing in improving their level of resilience against disasters, you will limit the financial impact of disasters on your operations and increase their chance of full recovery; and, on the other hand, by contributing to building societal resilience, alongside and in close cooperation with other actors, your can reduce the economic impact of disasters on your customers (individuals, government or businesses) and hope therefore for a quicker recovery of your regular income streams.

IO7 SUPPORT SMES & ENTREPRENEURS

  • An estimated 172 million people worldwide were unemployed in 2018, which corresponds to an unemployment rate of 5%. An additional 25 million may now lose their jobs due to the fallout of the corona virus pandemics in 2020. Other factors such as gender, age, education level and disability constitute aggravating factors for employability.

    Globally, low-income populations are also more likely to be involved in subsistence-level own-account work (in 2018,  1.1 billion worked on their own account) because of an absence of job opportunities in the formal sector and/or the lack of a social protection system.

    Equally worrisome is the fact that more than one in five young people (15-24) globally is not in employment, education or training (NEET). In the long run, a high NEET rate makes it harder for an economy to grow over a sustained period.

  • As employers, businesses can adopt inclusive employment strategies to reach, train, employ and support low-income people to work and build employable skills while balancing their work-life obligations.

    Businesses must also pay attention that low-skilled jobs for which they may recruit mostly from low-income groups come with decent work hours, especially for women employees, equal benefits than higher-skilled jobs and provide professional development and career evolution opportunities.

    As customers, businesses can take measures to increase the share of MSMEs from low-income areas in their supply chain, such as removing barriers in their procurement policies and assisting low-income suppliers in meeting their specific needs.

  • By making efforts to reduce unemployment and underemployment in low-income populations, either through recruitment or direct sourcing, your business will contribute to reducing poverty and enhancing social cohesion, both of which contribute to building a propitious environment for inclusive economic growth. But it is not only social role that you will fulfill doing so: talents, craftsmanship and strong motivation for achievement are usually high  in low-income populations and MSMEs, and your company will benefit from being more inclusive of them in its operations.