IBM and Latin Business Today team on tools and content for small businesses
Online publisher Latin Business Today announced it will provide IBM’s small-business resource website SME Toolkit with articles and other editorial material. Latin Business Today will regularly supplement the content available through the Hispanic section of SME Toolkit, a free website that promotes economic growth in under-served and emerging markets. “We see the SME Toolkit as a way to accelerate economic development and job growth through the deployment of information and communication technologies,” says Robin Willner, Vice President for Global Community Initiatives, Corporate Citizenship, and Corporate Affairs at IBM.
India is known for setting ambitious development goals that they are unable to fulfil. Case in point: Seven years ago, the slogan ‘Power for All by 2012,’ became national policy. Today, India has 288 million people living without electricity access, according to a November 2011 International Energy Agency report. Renewable energy offers an exception to India’s history of overpromised goals. The nation overshot its installation target by 100% just two years after “Power for All” became policy. Since then, renewable energy in India has been growing quickly.
Wal-Mart seeks end to re-filed gender-bias lawsuit
Women who re-filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc have failed to come to grips with the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that ended their nationwide class action against the company, Wal-Mart argued in a court filing. Plaintiffs alleging the company denied them pay raises because of their gender are regrouping after the high court last year dismantled a class of up to 1.5 million current and former Wal-Mart workers.
East Africa’s drought: the avoidable disaster
The deaths of tens of thousands of people during the drought in east Africa could have been avoided if the international community, donor governments and humanitarian agencies had responded earlier to warning signs according to a new report, A Dangerous Delay. The report by Save the Children and Oxfam suggests current emergency response systems, which they believe to be seriously flawed, will soon be tested again as new humanitarian crises loom in West Africa where growing food shortages are reported.
Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners destitute and in some cases starving. Human Rights Watch said 1.5 million Ethiopians would eventually be forced from their land and highlighted what it said was the latest case of forced relocation in its report, Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship. Government officials deny the charge and say the affected plots of land are largely uninhabited and under-used, while it has also launched a programme to settle people in more fertile areas.
European Commission announces partners for business and human rights projects
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry has announced the names of organisations that will implement important new European projects on business and human rights. The sector-specific guidance on corporate responsibility will be led by the Institute for Human Rights and Business and Shift, an independent non-profit centre specialising in this field. Together they will produce a human rights risk-mapping for SMEs, draft some case studies of how SMEs deal with human rights, and develop a practical guide to human rights for small businesses.
COMMENTS