The Alliance for Inclusive Business between the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and SNV Netherlands Development Organization has launched a report highlighting its joint work in Latin America over the past 4 years. The report features 11 case stories from a variety of sectors and captures key learnings and success factors of inclusive business in practice, based on the Alliance’s experience on the ground.
Inclusive business ventures are both profitable and expand social and economic opportunities for the low-income segment. The case studies demonstrate how low-income communities are engaged across companies’ value chains – through direct employment; the development of suppliers, distributors and service providers; or through the innovative development and delivery of affordable goods and services that address unmet needs.
The report also explains how, working through the local representatives of both organizations, the WBCSD-SNV Alliance has focused on three areas of activity: raising awareness about inclusive business models; brokering of new business opportunities that benefit low-income communities in the target countries; and advocating for the improvement of framework conditions for this type of inclusive business.
Since its launch in 2006, the WBCSD-SNV Alliance has advanced some forty inclusive business ventures in ten Latin American countries. Eight of those ventures are described in the report.