A private sector 'productivity tool' to eliminate poverty is catching on around the world

In the nation's poorest big city, Sister Pie bakery is trying to do its part as a small business to adopt business concepts that aren't conducive to creating the highest profit margins but are, instead, centered around bringing equity to the Detroit neighborhood of West Village. Owner, Lisa Ludwinski, aims to "challenge traditional capitalism and the patriarchy" by hiring mostly local women, providing fair wages and health benefits, sourcing ingredients from local vendors, and providing discounts to neighborhood residents.

Kitovu Technology is a social enterprise that aims to use data and technology to help farmers in Nigeria increase their crop yields and access new markets. Since 2017, the company has trained over 300 agents to work with about 12,000 farmers on using the mobile app to track their progress. The company also partnered with the government on a pilot program to introduce an electronic warehouse system to allow farmers to store their grains.

A family-run syringe making company in India is leading the manufacturing of Covid vaccine-specific barrels and needles, a task that no other country has been able to manage at the same speed. Because Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices is a family business – meaning no shareholders – the production of these medical supplies is able to be done without any interferences; although, the operation is a frugal task for the business owner.

Climeworks, a Swiss start-up, is using technology to suck carbon out of the air and turning it into stone, essentially cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere permanently. Their plant in Iceland is able to turn 50 tonnes of carbon to stone per year. While that amount of carbon won’t solve the climate crisis, they are expanding their work to other countries and are launching a personal carbon removal subscription service as a way for the travel industry to help offset the carbon that they emit each year.

Mark Brown has brought Ghandian economic principles of economic justice and local autonomy to the Mexican countryside to form a farm-to-garment textile business that employs villagers who once made woolen textiles until the industrial clothing era started producing cheap synthetic clothing and rendered their craft unprofitable. Khadi Oaxaca aims to regenerate the village way of life in a sustainable way and employs several hundred villagers who grow the cotton, spin the thread, design the clothing and bring it to market for tourists - bringing a previously economically depressed village out of poverty.

Food companies like General Mills and Hershey are sharing their expertise with entrepreneurs in Africa to help strengthen their businesses and depend less on foreign imports. Employees of the company volunteer through an organization called Partners in Food Solutions, and they share advice about things like hygiene, business plans, vitamin enrichment, and more. So far over 250 African businesses have worked with more than 1,400 Partners in Food Solutions employees.

Currently poverty is assessed on a household basis, however individuals within the same house can experience poverty differently. The Individual Deprivation Measure will be the first gender-sensitive tool that will be able to help better inform policy and understandings of poverty.

A disproportionate of the world's money is concentrated in the pockets of a handful. Muhammad Yunus sees the importance of social business in helping change this trend and distribute wealth more evenly.

The rapid evolution of technology is continually opening new doors for how microfinance projects can be implemented, improved, and scaled. The team at ADDO A.I. sees artificial intelligence as the catalyst for both microfinance and microinsurance in the emerging markets of Asia. A.I. reduces the need for human assessments, facilitating faster pay-outs and reduced losses through predictive data, while combining information such as financial histories and social media activity with historic context data to create fair, realistic risk assessments that lead to improved credit products.

Cities are often alone in trying to develop solutions to their problems. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago developed an app— "The Peer Cities Identification Tool"— that matches similar U.S. cities and encourages discussion about challenges and successes.