Correspondent banking is the cornerstone of the global payment system, designed to serve the settlement of financial transactions across country borders. It allows companies and individuals to safely move money around the world and supports and encourages global trade. Since the financial crisis, tighter regulations - and in particular the regulatory penalties imposed for violations of anti-money laundering (AML) – have caused western banks to rethink their global strategy. The risks of doing business in many developing nations are beginning to be seen as outweighing the financial benefits brought by correspondent banking activity. As a result, US and European banks have reduced their correspondent banking activity in the riskiest regions.
In July the 2017 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Business Forum recognised the critical role of business in delivering on the promise of sustainable and inclusive development. In this article, we elaborate on the SDG business case, and how businesses can engage with the SDG framework; driving business growth and productivity, whilst contributing to the better world envisaged by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Businesses with a year-end of 31 March 2016 were the first ones required to publish their modern slavery and human trafficking statements to comply with the UK Modern Slavery Act. One year later, several reports have measured and scrutinised the quality of businesses' modern slavery statements.
SDG target 8.7 is to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.
This book presents the country development diagnostics post-2015 framework, developed by the World Bank Group to assess the country-level implications of the post-2015 global agenda, as well as brief, ‘at-a-glance’ applications of the framework to ten countries: Ethiopia, Jamaica, the Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, and Uganda.
Companies need to adjust their recruitment and retention practices to take into account the culture and needs of the new millennial generation. This is important for advancing SDG 8.6 to substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.
Tourism and hospitality are labour intensive, with 8% of the global workforce employed in the sector. The critique of employment conditions in the sector is deeply rooted, low remuneration, anti-social hours, insecurity, limited access to training and poor career progression are charges regularly levelled at the industry. The World Responsible Tourism Awards showcases many examples of companies choosing to have inclusive labour practices.
The burgeoning economy in Myanmar is creating much opportunity in the country but this is putting a strain on the judicial system which is trying to keep pace with development. The Juris Pilot addresses the need for greater knowledge of international contract law by training government legal staff. Sharing knowledge between professionals advances SDG 16.3 to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels.
Many countries are experiencing economic benefit from a surge in tourism, but once pristine landscapes are changing and local communities rarely benefit from the tourism, and instead run the risk of losing their livelihoods. Researchers in Thailand are investigating “creative tourism” – creative, sustainable approaches to tourism, that enable producers and consumers to relate and get value from their connections. This supports the tourism elements of SDGs 8, 12 and 14.
This article highlights the winning proposals of the second edition of the Elsevier Foundation Green & Sustainable Chemistry Challenge. The winning proposals were chosen for their innovative green chemistry aspects and their large positive impact on the environment, contributing to SDGs 3, 8, 13 and 15.
The marketing value of the concept of ecotourism is now very low, as there is very little evidence that it delivers. Many people in the developing world are unable to visit National Parks and suffer only negative impacts – loss of access for meat, fruits, thatching grass and land for agriculture. How does a consumer or tour operator identify wildlife operators and conservancies that are really making a contribution? Either to wildlife and habitat conservation or to the livelihoods of local communities to ensure that they benefit from conservation?
