The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership is partnering with the UK's Department for International Development and Unilever to create "Transform" – a new initiative to improve health and well-being for up to 100 million people in developing countries by 2025. The focus is sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The announcement comes the week the United Nations adopts new Sustainable Development Goals, which commit to eradicating extreme poverty, fighting justice and inequality, and taking urgent action on climate change.
An estimated 17 per cent of people in the developing world still live at or below $1.25 per day, and about 2.4 billion people remain without access to adequate sanitation.
Transform will pilot and create innovative enterprises that help low-income households meet their basic needs of water, sanitation, hygiene, and domestic energy. It will identify and develop social business models that serve low income households. And, it will drive behavior change through digital and mobile, to improve health and well-being on a large scale.
“CGEP’s last-mile distribution enterprise models have the potential to provide work and income to countless numbers of women living in low-income communities in developing countries while providing fortified food and affordable products to hard-to-reach areas. By creating direct and frequent connections to their customers they are also well positioned to be effective in catalyzing positive changes in behaviour in the areas of health, sanitation, and nutrition,” said Frank Giustra, co-founder of the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership.
Transform will be a five year, minimum £10-million, initiative that will initially focus on water, sanitation and hygiene, with the potential to expand to household energy. It will identify and develop social business models that serve low-income households and contribute to the evidence base around behaviour change, with a focus on digital and mobile, to improve health and well-being on a large scale.
Transform is the first initiative to be launched since Unilever and DFID committed to working together to help the world’s poor in 2014 – the first partnership of its kind between a leading international business and DFID. The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP) joins the partnership as the first Initiative Level Partner, bringing its expertise in last-mile distribution.
All three organizations will engage their global teams across Africa and South Asia in a collaborative process to identify commercially viable investments, provide capital, and deliver technical expertise and capacity building to support Transform.
“Since 2008, CGEP has been empowering communities, farmers, and aspiring entrepreneurs in Latin America to lift themselves from poverty, create jobs for others, and scale-up these improvements to reach even more lives. Today’s announcement will enable us to expand this model to Africa, with the help, resources, and expertise of the U.K. Department for International Development, and Unilever. Through this innovative partnership, more and more people across Africa will be able to strengthen their livelihoods and improve their communities through cleaner water and sanitation,” said former President Bill Clinton.
UK International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: “This weekend the world will come together to adopt a new set of Global Goals to end extreme poverty over the next 15 years. We know that we will not achieve this with aid alone, which is why we need to unleash new finance, expertise and innovation to turbo charge development. Transform is a great example of the kind of partnership we need to do this, using the best in our resources, networks and know-how to boost social enterprises and change behaviour across Africa and Asia, creating jobs and improving the lives of millions of people.”
For further details visit https://foundry.unilever.com/brightfuture/transform.
