COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, devastating impacts on the lives, livelihoods and learning of millions of people, particularly the most vulnerable. While efforts have rightly focused on mitigating the immediate impacts, we need to start thinking about efforts to recover and rebuild, because action taken now will have long-lasting effects on people’s well-being and resilience.
We, as a community, have the opportunity and the responsibility to act now to build a better future. The pandemic has exacerbated deep inequalities and fragilities in the current system that have always been there, including with respect to race, gender and social exclusion.
I would like to invite you to join us for a week of inspiring and engaging content, live events, peer networking and structured learning to explore how we can rebuild better together. Taking place from 13 to 17 July, Business Fights Poverty Online 2020 will provide an opportunity to collectively set out a vision for what “better” looks like – at the level of society, business and the individual, and spark collaborative action to make this a reality.
The event is free to attend and is supported and co-curated by Pearson, and a range of other partners including the Harvard Kennedy School Corporate Responsibility Initiative, Visa, Standard Chartered, the IFC, the ILO, the UN Office for Partnerships, Care, Oxfam, WWF, The Partnering Initiative, the International Council for Mining and Metals, and the World Benchmarking Alliance.
The event, which replaces our flagship event, Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2020, has been designed with the same energy and spirit to deliver a truly engaging and inspiring experience. Each day we will deep-dive into a different themes – through live events, peer-networking, learning materials and community-generated content:
- Purpose (Monday, 13 July): How can we embed purpose into business, as we rebuild better? Efforts to rebuild better must be led by governments, but business, along with civil society has a critical role to play. Embedding purpose into business can be a power force for change, but how do we ensure this is authentic?
- Opportunity (Tuesday, 14 July): How can we help workers, SMEs and farmers thrive? The coronavirus pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing fragilities in value chains. How can we create opportunity and build resilience, especially for the most vulnerable workers, small enterprises and farmers?
- Skills (Wednesday, 15 July): How can we build the skills needed for the future? COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdowns have put at risk the jobs of hundreds of millions of people. This comes on top of disruptive trends like automation. How can we ensure people, especially young people, have the skills they need?
- Equity (Thursday, 16 July): How do we achieve gender and racial equity? The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact by gender, race and income level. The murder of George Floyd has highlighted the urgent need for action against racism. How can business help drive equity?
- Collaboration (Friday, 17 July): How do we work together to drive system-level change? It has been clear over recent months that we are deeply interconnected, and that faced with a global challenge we have the capacity to collaborate. How can we harness this to tackle climate change and inequality?
The event is part of our Business and COVID-19 Response and is also timed to coincide with the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the UN platform for follow-up on the Sustainable Development Goals – the internationally agreed goals for people and planet, and a valuable context for our discussion about rebuilding better.
I look forward to seeing you during the week. You can register for free here.
