McDonald’s has famously been using a franchise model to grow its global business, for the most part highly successfully. Similarly, Greenstar, an NGO-backed network of reproductive health clinics in Pakistan has successfully employed franchising to bring healthcare to the poor. Recently, when researching such social business models, I noticed both commonalities as well as differences.

Around the globe, and particularly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, there are number of 'social franchises' offering affordable quality services to low-income populations. Greenstar, with a network of 7,500 clinics and close to four million patient visits so far, is among the bigger ones.

While social franchise models have the potential to deliver a variety of services with a social value, many such models focus on health, particularly family planning and other reproductive health services. So what do they have in common with a fast food company? And what are the differences?

Social health franchises share the same goals of expansion and financial sustainability as McDonald’s. However, while conventional, commercial franchising is essentially about maximising both franchisors’ and franchisees’ profits, social franchising aims to maximise social impact.

Why do social franchises, including health providers in rural Pakistan, need to make a profit you may ask? Well, mostly to ensure financial sustainability, i.e. to make sure health services continue to be provided and made available to the poor at a reasonable quality. In other words, profits, even though they are often rather small, are an important incentive for health providers to offer their services. After all, not many McDonald’s outlets would exist if they weren’t making a profit!

Nevertheless, there are important differences. While aiming at profitability at the franchisee end of the spectrum, many health franchises, such as Greenstar in Pakistan, are not profitable at the franchisor end and may rely on (public or private) grants and donations to provide training, quality assurance, brand building and other services to their network of franchised providers.

Social franchising thus constitutes an excellent and efficient entry point for private and public donors and impact investors: They get to support an established network of franchised health service providers (e.g. clinics) that cater particularly to the poor in heard-to-reach areas. In other words, they get to make an impact in areas which purely commercial models are unable or unwilling to reach.

And I do wonder what a woman in rural Pakistan might buy for the price of a cheeseburger...

Language helps us communicate. Foreign languages help us communicate in different cultures and contexts. But do they? We all know that a lot gets lost in translation. We also know that even without the need for translation a great deal of what we aim to convey gets lost or distorted in the communication process. This results in misunderstandings the outcomes of which range from funny to potentially politically disastrous.

So is language a divisive factor or a unifying one? Last week I gave a guest lecture at Salzburg University in which I discussed examples of intercultural (mis)communication in Africa and Asia. In my experience the biggest misunderstandings happen when people are not aware that they operate in different cultures and contexts, i.e. that they need to look through a cultural lens. For example, while Europeans may be alert to cultural differences when doing business in Africa, they often underestimate the influence of culture when working together on common projects within Europe (or, by extension, with other Europeans elsewhere).

Secondly, I find that a common language, such as English – which can be considered the world’s lingua franca – can mislead people to believe they fully understand each other when really they are using the same words, but with very different meanings. When I first arrived in Zambia in Southern Africa (where English is the official national language) after a long flight from Europe I was dropped off at my hotel. When saying goodbye, the driver asked what time I wanted to be “carried” to the office the next day. Only after making it very clear that I did not expect to be ‘carried’ and was quite happy to walk if no car was available did it dawn on me that ‘carrying’ simply meant ‘driving’. While my post-plane fatigue may have extended the time it took me to realise the misunderstanding at play it was certainly my familiarity with the word ‘to carry’ that had fooled me and delayed my putting on those cultural glasses.

While some misunderstandings - like the one in Zambia - are a good laugh at the end, other misunderstandings have a bigger impact. For example, nowadays most people in the business world will claim to understand what ‘sustainability’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) mean. However, individual knowledge and definitions tend to differ widely, which does not stop people from frequently using those terms. Definitions for CSR, for example, range from investing in true corporate responsibility for what goes on in society, to one-off projects far off core business which may have a mild public relations effect but are seen by companies as a cost rather than an investment and barely scratch the surface of any societal issue.

As long as such implicit definitions are not made explicit, there is enormous room for misunderstanding and for miscommunication causing partnerships to fail. This is why when engaging in partnerships, such as public-private partnerships, significant time must be devoted to ensuring all parties are on the same page and that they literally understand each other, from the outset. In other words, partners need to talk about communication before touching the issues at stake.

Have you ever encountered a female pilot on a commercial flight? I haven’t yet, despite flying pretty regularly and having been a frequent flyer in the past. Knowing that airlines do not have specific body height and strength requirements for pilots anymore I have been curious about the enormous gender gap in cockpits for a while. Now that I am finalising a publication on gender equality in private sector development for UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, I’m even more curious.

According to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots, only 3 percent of commercial pilots are female (4,000 out of 130,000 worldwide), the majority of them in the United States. A few more hold licenses but don’t fly commercially. Aviation is not a sector covered by UNIDO, but I have been looking at parallels in other sectors, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), engineering, manufacturing, investment, etc.

While women account for about 20 percent of engineering graduates, they represent only about 11 percent of practicing engineers. In ICT, women account for about 20 percent of jobs, but only 11 percent among IT strategy and planning professionals (according to the International Telecommunication Union). The proportion of women in manufacturing differs widely globally, ranging from as low as 4 percent in Kuwait to around 10 percent in India and Iran, to 55 percent in Sri Lanka and 58 percent in Vietnam. Within countries there are stark differences between sectors. For example, in Ethiopia women account for 31 percent in total manufacturing; 50 percent in textile and chemical manufacturing; 16 percent in electrical machinery and apparatus manufacturing; and only 2 percent in machinery and equipment manufacturing (UNIDO statistics). You get the idea.

What explains those gender disparities? What do these sectors have in common? Is it because of sexist or discriminatory work environments? Is it the fact that in most societies women still bear the brunt of domestic work? In aviation, does it have to do with the military as an entry point into flying, helping future pilots get around otherwise prohibitive training costs? Or are gender stereotypes by clients and customers to blame (there have been cases of passengers stepping off a plane when realising that a woman was going to fly it)?

A mix of reasons probably is the answer. However, reasons commonly brought forward, such as time commitments and willingness to spend time away from home, do not explain why women are abundantly present in lower-level positions (think cabin crews which are predominantly female) while being absent in higher-level positions. Above all, women’s underrepresentation in specific sectors may have to do with a lack of role models getting young women interested in these sectors. As airlines, engineering schools and other institutions make efforts to attract women, gender equality is improving slowly but surely.

And this is absolutely crucial since companies cannot afford to miss out on half of the population when looking for the best candidates for a given job. The next time I step on a plane I certainly want the best pilots in the cockpit, regardless of their sex. In other words, I would like to know that they are the best available pilots, not just the best available men.

PS: While it is mostly women who are discriminated against, and this is what this blog focuses on, there are of course many cases of men being treated unfairly as well. For example, there is evidence that in textile manufacturing - an industry where cleanliness is highly important - men are discriminated against as they are perceived to be ‘dirtier’ than women.

“The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.” This is quite intuitive. Nevertheless, all over the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used as the macroeconomic measure for progress. GDP growth is globally regarded as a central economic goal and last but not least as a precondition for facilitating social development.  This is all the more interesting given that it was Mr. Kuznets who made the above statement, the very man who in 1934 developed the GDP for the US Congress. Robert Kennedy, too, in 1968 publicly said about the GDP that “it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”.

So why are we so firmly holding on to the belief that 1, growth is great and 2, that it helps sort out societal problems? There are many possible answers to this, including the fact that the GDP as a national measure really is quite useful, not least because it facilitates comparison across countries. While not dwelling further on the GDP in this particular blog I would like to talk about what progress and happiness actually mean, and how this relates to politics.

When analysing the concept of happiness is important to distinguish between ‘luck’ as a fleeting emotional peak or coincidence on the one hand, and ‘happiness’ in the sense of contentedness and wellbeing on the other. Researchers also talk about “optimal challenge”, i.e. the best possible use of a person’s interests and skills. Happiness can have many faces: high quality of living, life satisfaction and wealth as well as democracy, freedom, safety, education, and health. And this distinction is key: happiness means different things to different people. 

A number of governments, international organisations and other institutions have developed indices to try and measure ‘happiness’ since they have generally subscribed to improving education, health, safety, etc. in their domains. Most of them were inspired by the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan which has famously been using its Gross National Happiness index for years. While happiness and social progress are quite complex and thus cannot be reduced to one universally-applicable measure, a number of useful indices exist. To mention only one: it is worth checking out the OECD’s Better Life Index.

The Better Life Index is a web-based interactive tool which allows people to engage in the debate on wellbeing and on what matters most to them. It compares and visualises wellbeing across countries according to individual wellbeing preferences. The Index offers 11 dimensions: community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, housing, income jobs, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance.

And finally back to the GDP with a quick comment on the GDP vis-à-vis other indices: while a number of people seem to suggest that other happiness-oriented indices should replace it, my view is that, for the time being, we should definitely keep the GDP. Nevertheless, we must add a system for national and global monitoring of happiness and wellbeing which enjoys the same level of priority in financing, tracking and communicating results as the GDP. The latter point is of particular importance since what is not measured cannot be managed and will not be prioritised by politicians. In other words, we desperately need a governance system to consistently measure happiness and societal wellbeing, thus holding decision-makers to account and contributing to societal progress and development. Eureka!

2015 marks a turning point in sustainable development: For the first time in history, governments, businesses and civil society are coming together to agree on a set of global development goals which are binding for rich and poor countries alike. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are expected to be formally introduced in September 2015 at the the Global Summit in New York.

The SDGs build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) defined in 2000 with a 2015 target date; they are often referred to as the post-2015 development agenda. In bringing a lot more stakeholders to the table and aiming to tackle a much larger number of development themes than the MDGs, the SDGs are also much more ambitious. One of the MDGs’ key strengths was that they focused on eight goals with a manageable number of sub-goals and targets. It currently looks like the SDGs will comprise 17 goals and 169 (!) targets.

In addition to the larger number of goals, the enhanced degree of participation and stakeholder consultation also adds complexity. Developing a system to measure progress on the SDGs will not be a mean feat. Financing too still has to be sorted out. A Financing for Development Conference in the summer will discuss the means of SDG implementation.

When considering the challenges ahead it is important not to lose sight of the fact that great and previously unthinkable progress has already been made through the MDG agenda. The latter got the world to focus on key development areas, communicating them widely and, most importantly, agreeing on common goals and transparent tracking of progress. Focusing on poverty, health, education, gender and other important aspects of human development, the MDG process was revolutionary at the time. While not all goals and targets have been achieved in all countries, solid progress has been made overall and the fact that most of the world’s governments came together and agreed to work towards the same set of goals, including through making their progress transparent, cannot be overstated enough.

Watch this space!

The picture says it all: some have it and some don’t. You’re right, we are talking about money. However, inequality does not manifest itself simply through wealth or income. Inequality has a whole load of other causes and consequences. Chances are that the people living on the right hand side are also healthier and better educated than those on the left hand side of the picture, and they are much more likely to have access to information through the internet. Whether the people on the right are happier than those on the left is a different story, it is something we can’t say for sure (but I’ll explore it in one of my upcoming blogs). What we do know is that an unequal world is not sustainable.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Can poor and rich be defined by income and wealth alone or do other variables matter more? How does all this relate to happiness? And who is responsible for making sure the world ‘works’ and allows all of its citizens to live well? Is social development at odds with business? Can politicians make us happy?

As I mention in my Vision Statement I believe that we are all responsible for developing the world into the right direction, economically, socially and environmentally. This requires all of us to feel responsible: individuals must take care of their neighbours and communities; businesses must analyse and optimise their social and environmental impact; and politicians must put their constituencies’ welfare above political and personal gain.

This Blog will discuss a variety of sustainability and development themes I come across in my professional and personal life, be it when working with women in rural areas of Africa on demanding better healthcare from the authorities; when teaching students from around the globe on sustainable business and management for the future; when writing a report about politics and happiness; when helping start-ups work out their social impact; or when discussing my own work-life balance with family and friends.

I hope you enjoy this blog - please do comment and share widely! Thank you :)