Month: September 2023
ESG Investing Attracts the Young and the Wealthy
Polina Marinova, deputy editor of Fortune Venture, speaks to young investors at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, which focused on artificial intelligence, capital investment, cybersecurity, and impact investing. Aspen, Colorado, July 16, 2019. (Photo by Michael Faas for Fortune Magazine) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis FRANKFURT, Germany, September 19, 2019 (Maximpact.com...[Read More]
Microfinance Borrowers Gain Access to Impact Capital
Sometimes a small amount of money can make a big difference to borrowers’ lives and businesses. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients, savings and checking accounts, microinsurance, and payment systems. July 2014 (Photo by Pictures of Money) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis ZURICH, Switzerland, August 8, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – From i...[Read More]
‘Humanity’s Highest Aspiration’ Under Attack
Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks at the High-level segment of the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council, Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, February 25, 2020 (Photo by Antoine Tardy courtesy UN) Creative Commons license via Flickr. By Sunny Lewis for Maximpact GENEVA, Switzerland, February 27, 2020 (Maximpact.com News) – Basic human rights, the ...[Read More]
Spotlight Deal: LightUp Africa
Lack of electricity is a barrier to development for millions of people around the world. Without an affordable source of electric light students can’t study, craftspeople can’t produce goods and businesses are limited in when and how they can operate. The electricity shortage is particularly acute for people living in rural areas, many of whom are forced to walk hours simply to charge the mobile p...[Read More]
Prejudice Impairs Efforts to End Statelessness
Tenacious Kyrgyz lawyer and statelessness champion, Azizbek Ashurov, took to horseback to help more than 10,000 stateless people gain nationality in Kyrgystan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. He has been awarded the UN refugee agency’s prestigious 2019 Nansen Refugee Award. Here, he talks with two Kyrgyz women. 2019 (Photo courtesy United Nations) Posted for media use By Sunny Lewis GENEVA,...[Read More]
‘Tsunami of E-waste’ Could Mean Decent Jobs
Burmese workers try to protect themselves from the fumes and smoke from the cooking of circuit boards in a primitive site that receives e-waste from North America and Europe. May 22, 2018 (Photo by Basel Action Network) Creative Commons license via Flickr. By Sunny Lewis GENEVA, Switzerland, April 18, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – The “toxic flood of electric and electronic waste” that is growing by...[Read More]
Aligning Institutional Investment With Sustainable Development
By Sunny Lewis NEW YORK, New York, September 22, 2015 (Maximpact News) – The largest public pension fund in the United States, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), with upwards of US$300 billion in assets, takes sustainability seriously. Just days ahead of a United Nations summit in New York that will adopt new Sustainable Development Goals to guide international efforts t...[Read More]
Coca Cola teaches ColaLife how to turn profit points into healthy babies
New collaborative models in social impact delivery are springing up all around us, sometimes in surprising places. At Maximpact, when we see them, we like to celebrate them. One encouraging example is the story of ColaLife. The founders of ColaLife had a brilliant idea: using Coca Cola’s extensive distribution network to get anti-diarrhoea medicines into the remotest parts of rural Zambia. The goa...[Read More]
Carbon Budgets Ignore Trees on Farms
Trees and grass established as part of a riparian buffer on the Ron Risdal farm in Story County, Iowa. The Iowa State University AgroEcology team has helped landowners along this stream, Bear Creek, establish miles of buffers and earn the stream recognition as a U.S. national demonstration site, June 6, 2016 (Photo by U.S. Dept. of Agriculture) Public domain By Sunny Lewis NAIROBI, Kenya, August 3...[Read More]
Young Asylum Seekers Caged, Neglected at U.S. Border
Overcrowding observed by DHS Inspector General June 11, 2019, detention center Weslaco, Texas (Photo courtesy OIC) public domain. By Sunny Lewis WASHINGTON, DC, July 9, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – “I’m hungry here at Clint all the time. I’m so hungry that I have woken up in the middle of the night with hunger. … I’m too scared to ask the officials here for any more food, even though there is not e...[Read More]
Carbon Pricing Gathers Momentum
@Maximpactdotcom By Sunny Lewis WASHINGTON, DC, April 26, 2016 (Maximpact.com News) – “There is a growing sense of inevitability about putting a price on carbon pollution,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on the eve of the April 22 signing ceremony at UN Headquarters of the Paris Climate Agreement. Kim joined government and corporate leaders in issuing a set of fast-moving goals – to ...[Read More]
Learning to Invest With Impact
The Global Development and Economy program at Brookings and the International Finance Corporation held a panel discussion on “The potential of impact investing to create impact. Global’s Interim Vice President Homi Kharas, left, moderated the discussion. April 8, 2019, Washington, DC (Photo by Paul Morigi / Brookings Institution) By Sunny Lewis NEW YORK, New York, June 13, 20198 (Maximpact.com New...[Read More]