The Allianz Knowledge Site's Who's Who features people and organizations that make a difference in the areas of climate change, microfinance, and demographic change.
Acción International
Who are they?
One of the world’s oldest and largest microfinance institutions.
What do they do?
In 2006, the Acción was serving around 2.46 million clients, most of them in Latin America, but also several thousand in Africa, Asia, and the United States. Acción works with partner microfinance institutions in most of the 24 countries it currently operates in.
Joseph Blanchard founded Acción International in 1961 as a way to assist South America’s working and urban poor. The organization began microlending in Recife, Brazil in 1973, making it one of the first, if not the first, microcredit projects in the world.
Acción’s President Maria Otero credits the organization with creating the “commercial model” of microfinance, the notion that microfinance institutions should generate more income than they spend – making them financially self-sustaining and ultimately profitable. Three of Acción’s microfinance partners – Banco Solidario (Ecuador), Compartamos (Mexico), and Mibanco (Peru) – have made the transition from non-profit to commercial bank.
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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Who are they?
The world’s wealthiest transparently run foundation.
What do they do?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to improve health, reduce extreme poverty, and increase access to technology in developing countries.
In the United States, the foundation strives to provide everyone with education and access to technology in public libraries. The foundation was formed in 2000 and has gained worldwide fame despite its short history due to its impressive budget. Endowed with some 33.4 billion dollars from Bill and Melinda Gates’ personal fortune, the foundation is by far the world’s wealthiest philanthropic organization. So far, it has given out grants worth 13.6 billion dollars, 1.56 billion in 2006 alone.
The foundation will have an even bigger budget now that billionaire Warren Buffett has pledged to donate stocks worth 37 billion dollars over the next several years. The foundation does not run its own projects, but rather provides grants to organizations in more than 100 countries. These grants include the 11 million dollars given to the Mexican National Council of Culture & Arts for a library project, as well as a staggering 1.58 billion dollars given to the United Negro College Fund for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.
The approximately 800 million dollars that the foundation gives every year for global health is close to the annual budget of the United Nations' World Health Organization.
Carbon Disclosure Project
Who are they?
A non-profit that collects and publishes information about the carbon emissions and climate strategies of large businesses.
What do they do?
Since 2002, the London-based non-profit conducts an annual survey of thousands of large companies about their greenhouse gas emissions and the business risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The aim of Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is to promote dialogue between investors and corporations about the implications for shareholder value and commercial operations presented by climate change.
Ninety-one percent of the 2,180 surveyed corporations responded to the 2006 CDP survey, with 72 percent answering the questionnaire in-full. In February 2007, CDP sent out its fifth annual survey to 2,400 companies. The information request was signed by over 280 institutional investors with a combined worth of over 41 trillion US dollars.
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Carbon Trust
Who are they?
A government-funded organization that assists UK businesses and public institutions reduce their carbon emissions.
What do they do?
The Carbon Trust encourages - through a variety of services like consultation, tax breaks, and interest-free loans - energy efficiency, use of renewable energy, and other technologies conducive to a low-carbon economy. It also provides free access to hundreds of publications ranging from introductory guides to energy efficiency to specific case studies.
The organization is an independent company set up by the British government in 2001. It is divided into five "business areas": Insight, Solutions, Innovations, Enterprises, and Investments. The Carbon Trust is partially funded from money generated through the UK Climate Change Levy, a tax on non-renewable energy sold to non-domestic users.
In Spring 2007, the Carbon Trust introduced a "carbon reduction label" that tells consumers the carbon footprint of a product. The trust expects the label to be adopted by many companies that want to "demonstrate their commitment to reducing carbon direct to consumers via their products."
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CARE International
Who are they?
An international relief and humanitarian organization.
What do they do?
CARE tries to help the world’s poorest. CARE is one of the largest international relief organizations in the world. Founded in 1945 as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, the organization provided relief to survivors of World War II in Europe - the famous “CARE Packages."
With European recovery, the organization changed its name and scope into Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere. CARE now has programs in about 65 countries, reaching more than 50 million people. Over 12,000 people work for CARE and its projects worldwide. The organization’s vast field of work covers emergency relief during and after disasters.
More emphasis is being put on addressing the systemic causes of poverty, such as poor health and the lack of education and economic development. Women have become the main target group because empowered women help entire families and communities. As an advocacy group, CARE lobbies for human rights and the eradication of poverty.
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Conservation International
Who are they?
An international non-profit organization protecting plant and animal diversity.
What do they do?
Conservation International (CI) wants to preserve the Earth's global biodiversity. CI was founded in 1987 and currently has a staff of over 800 employees.
It headquarters in Washington, D.C. and works in more than 40 countries with emphasis on developing nations in Africa, the Pacific Rim, and the Central and South American rainforests. The group usually partners with local non-governmental organizations and indigenous peoples for specific projects. Approximately one-fourth of CI’s budget is disbursed to nearly 350 conservation partners.
CI has identified three central fields of conservational work:
- some 34 so-called biodiversity hotspots, such as the Himalayas or the Mediterranean Basin, that make up just two percent of the Earth’s surface, but are home to about 75 percent of the planet’s most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians;
- five biologically diverse wilderness areas covering some six percent of the planet, like the Amazon region or the North American deserts;
- seven key marine regions like the Gulf of California or the sea around the Philippines that are under stress from dense coastal populations and subsequent toxin inputs, radioactive dumping, oil and gas mining, overfishing and global climate change.
On the ground, CI maintains regional and country programs to protect biologically critical areas in cooperation with national, regional and local leaders and partner organizations. CI also works with the private sector to establish sustainable business strategies.
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Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)
Who are they?
A recognized center for expertise, knowledge sharing, innovation, and industry standards in the field of microfinance.
What do they do?
Housed in the World Bank building in Washington D.C., CGAP is an independent consortium of 33 public- and private-sector organizations working together to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing countries. The organization provides advisory services, training, research and development, consensus-building, and information dissemination on several topics related to microfinance. It has identified five "strategic priorities" for improving and expanding microfinance services worldwide: financial transparency, enabling policy frameworks, poverty outreach, institution building, and donor effectiveness.
CGAP also provides valuable Internet resources, including the Microfinance Gateway, a comprehensive online news and information resource about the microfinance industry. Many of CGAP's publications are made available in languages other than English (most often Arabic, Russian, Spanish, or French). CGAP also sponsors the Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX), a web-based platform that provides financial and performance information of around one thousand microfinance institutions worldwide.
Established in 1995, CGAP is supported by its "member donors," which include the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, European Commission, International Labour Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the foreign, finance, or development ministries of Japan, France, Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, and the United States.
Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Who are they?
The UK government department responsible for environmental protection.
What do they do?
DEFRA has published or funded many important studies about climate change-related topics, including impacts and adaptation in Britain, emissions-reduction strategies, and the climate monitoring, modeling, and projections carried out by the Hadley Centre for Climate Protection and Research at the Met Office and other research institutions.
In March 2007, DEFRA submitted the Climate Change Bill, which called for a mandatory 60 percent reduction in national carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Since 2006, DEFRA has been examining the feasibility of tradable personal carbon allowances, basically a "cap-and-trade" system for British households.
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Germanwatch
Who are they?
A German NGO that addresses the issues of climate change, food security, and North-South relations.
What do they do?
Along with other published papers and statistics about climate change, Germanwatch, together with CAN-Europe, has issued two Climate Change Performance Indexes - annual assessments and rankings of carbon dioxide emissions trends and climate policy in the world's biggest countries. Germanwatch also published a special ranking of the G8+5 countries ahead of the June 2007 G8 Summit in Germany.
Bonn-based Germanwatch has also raised legal complaints against the German Economic Ministry for not disclosing of the climate impacts of German exports, as well as against carmaker Volkswagen for violating the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, focusing business on car types that are "particularly harmful to the climate," and lobbying against climate protection frameworks.
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Grameen Bank
Who are they?
A microfinance institution and community development bank in Bangladesh.
What do they do?
Founded in 1983 by Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank gives out small loans to poor people, mostly women in rural areas, without demanding collateral. The bank grew from a simple microfinance institution into a state-wide conglomerate including fabric, telephone, and energy companies.
As of May, 2007, the bank had 7.21 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom were women. With 2,431 branches, Grameen Bank provided services in 78,659 villages, covering more than 94 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh. The bank’s customers hold 94 percent of its shares; the remaining 6 percent is owned by the government.
In recent years, Grameen has expanded the services available to clients. New services include pension schemes, individual savings accounts, and a range of “microfranchises,” such as the Village Phone initiative. Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. The Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997 to apply the methods developed by the Grameen Bank worldwide.
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Grameen Foundation
Who are they?
An international spin-off of Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Bank, promoting microfinance worldwide.
What do they do?
Inspired by the work of Yunus and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997 to support local microfinance institutions with funding, technology, technical assistance, and training. The organization and its global network partners reach over 3.6 million families in 22 countries.
The foundation has established a Technology Center focused on developing and deploying information and communications technology (ICT) to support microfinance and microfranchising initiatives, such as Grameen's Village Phone project. Grameen Foundation also launched the Capital Markets Group, aimed at tapping local and international capital markets to help expand microfinance worldwide. Like Grameen Bank, Grameen Foundation focuses on providing microfinance to women.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Who are they?
The United Nation’s foremost scientific body on climate change
What do they do?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is famous for its periodic Climate Change Assessment Reports, the world’s most influential reports on global climate change. In the report’s fourth edition, published in installments during 2007, the IPCC draws a grim picture of climate change. It concludes that recent changes are almost certainly man-made and that a significant reduction of greenhouse gases is necessary to limit the impacts.
The IPCC, however, is not a research body. While it unites the world’s leading experts on climate change, its assessments are based on already published scientific literature. Experts gather in four working groups, peer review each other’s work,l and mold it into four independent reports that together form the Assessment Report.
The IPCC was founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is only open to member states of the WMO and UNEP. As an intergovernmental body, the IPCC is under pressure from national governments that try to influence the wording of the summary reports. These summaries draw the most media attention and their editing involves a complicated procedure.
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Millennium Promise
Who are they?
A non-profit committed to achieving the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa by 2015.
What do they do?
The centerpiece of the Millennium Promise's activities is the Millennium Villages project - a five-year attempt to achieve the MDGs in almost 80 villages in 10 African countries. Since 2004, a variety of interventions - including school lunch programs, bed nets, and fertilizer - have resulted in dramatic increases in school attendance, drops in malaria prevalence, and improved crop production in Sauri, Kenya, the flagship Millennium Village.
Millennium Promise was co-founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs and philanthropist Raymond Chambers. The organization is also a founding partner of Malaria No More, an initiative founded in 2006 to mobilize the private and corporate sector to help reduce malaria deaths in Africa and elsewhere through education, bed nets, anti-malarial drugs, and insecticide
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Opportunity International
Who are they?
A Christian microfinance network that currently serves over one million clients worldwide.
What do they do?
Opportunity International currently operates in 28 developing countries with the help of over 40 partner organizations, mostly microfinance institutions (MFIs) that recruit local loan officers and work with clients. Eighty-six percent of all loans given out by Opportunity and its partners go to women.
During the early 1990s, Opportunity International pioneered the concept of a Trust Bank, a group of 15-40 lenders who guarantee each other's microloans. Opportunity has also begun to promote the conversion of local NGOs and MFIs into formal financial institutions - regulated commercial banks, development banks, and credit unions that can accept deposits, borrow money, and accept investments that will help them grow.
Most of Opportunity International's funding comes from private donors, with some money coming from church, government, and foundation grants. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave Opportunity International a 5.4 million-dollar grant (and a 10 million-dollar loan) in February 2007 to expand microfinance in Africa.
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Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Who are they?
An institution dedicated to climate change research, policy analysis, and engaging the businesses community on climate change.
What do they do?
Pew's Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC) is the largest alliance of corporations in the United States focused on addressing climate change. The Council's current 44 members include Bank of America, DuPont, General Electric, Deutsche Telekom, and Boeing. The corporations meet quarterly to discuss climate policy and practical solutions to climate change, but make no financial contributions to the Pew Center.
Founded as a non-profit, independent organization near Washington D.C. in 1998, the Pew Center also regularly publishes climate-related research and analysis. The center's scientific and policy experts are frequently consulted by the mainstream media and members of U.S. Congress.
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Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Who are they?
A center for research on global change, climate impact, and sustainable development.
What do they do?
PIK staff conducts research on climate impact and sustainable development to provide information for decision making an the public. The institute’s founder and director, Hans Joachim Schelnnhuber, advises German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate change. Schellnhuber and other PIK staff contributed to the IPCC’s influential fourth Climate Change Assessment Report and various World Bank studies.
PIK was founded in 1992 and now has a staff of around 150. Studying the impact of global change – especially climate change – on ecological, economic and social systems, the institute has become of Germany’s leading centers of climate change research. It is part of a global research network on environmental change, and collaborates with international partners, such as the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom.
The institute identifies four research domains: Earth system analysis, climate impacts and vulnerabilities, sustainable solutions, and transdisciplinary concepts. Among many projects, PIK researchers are currently working on a climate change damage library to better understand the sensitivity of societies to climate change impacts.
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Pro Mujer
Who are they?
An organization dedicated to empowering poor women in Latin America with micro-lending and business training.
What do they do?
Founded in 1990 by Lynne Paterson and Carmen Velasco, Pro Mujer now reaches around 150,000 microfinance clients, most of them in Bolivia where the organization was founded, but with thousands of clients also in Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and Argentina.
Along with its microfinance and training initiatives, Pro Mujer also provides affordable primary health care services and education, as well as legal education, so that women become aware of their rights in cases of domestic abuse. In Bolivia, the organization also built a computer center to teach basic computing skills to the children of microfinance clients.
Pro Mujer has been supported by a number of organizations including USAID, Unitus, and JP Morgan Chase. In March 2006, the organization received a 3.1 million-dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006 to expand services in Latin America.
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The Earth Institute
Who are they?
A center for research and education on sustainable development and poverty alleviation at Columbia University.
What do they do?
The Earth Institute was founded in 1995 to focus the sustainability research conducted in various branches of Columbia University. The institute aims to use existing science and technological tools to improve conditions for the world's poor while preserving the natural systems that support life on Earth.
The Earth Institue’s current director, Jeffrey D. Sachs, has been involved in the formulation of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and acted as head of the UN Millennium Project. Earth Institute faculty were leading several MDG task forces. The Earth Institute hosts a number of specific research facilities that focus on topics such as poverty, the Earth’s carbon cycle and energy, water access and safety, hazards mitigation, climate change, global health, ecosystems, and urbanization. An interdisciplinary approach to finding practical solutions for real-world problems, and combining natural and social scientific knowledge, are common features of the institute’s work.
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United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Who are they?
The largest multilateral source of development assistance in the world
What do they do?
UNDP offers expert advice, training and grants to member countries. Its focus is on five development challenges – democratic governance, poverty reduction, crisis prevention, energy and environment, and HIV/AIDS. The UNDP also coordinates national initiatives to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The program was established in 1965 by combining two UN aid schemes. In 1971, the two organizations were fully combined into the UNDP. The program is headquartered in New York City with field offices in 166 countries. Its budget was approximately 4.44 billion dollars in 2005, and stems entirely from voluntary contributions by member nations.
Among the UNDP’s various publications, the best known is probably the annual Human Development Report, which measures and analyzes developmental progress. The report is complemented by regional, national, and local development papers.
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World Resources Institute (WRI)
Who are they?
An independent environmental think tank
What do they do?
The World Resources Institute is an independent NGO lobbying for policies that foster environmentally sound, socially equitable development. Different from other NGOs, WRI does not do fieldwork, but concentrates on providing information and policy proposals. It does so by concentrating on four areas:
- climate, energy, and transport - governance and access to information regarding resources and the environment
- markets and enterprise: linking economic opportunity and environmental protection
- people and ecosystems: to protect ecosystems and people living off them
Founded in 1982, WRI is based in Washington, D.C. and employs about 100 people. The institute is probably best known for the biennial World Resources report that provides data and analysis on current environmental issues. The latest report is a collaborative product of WRI with the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Development Programme.
EMBARQ, the WRI’s Center for Sustainable Transport, partners with a number of cities like Mexico City and Shanghai to develop environementally friendly public transport systems.
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World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
Who are they?
An international non-governmental organization for the conservation, research and restoration of the natural environment.
What do they do?
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) focuses on the conservation of three types of biospeheres: forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. It tries to protect endangered species - hence its logo, the panda – and to fight pollution and climate change.
The WWF is the world's largest independent conservation organisation with over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in about 90 countries, and supporting 15,000 conservation and environmental projects around the world. About 90 percent of its funding comes from private and corporate donations.
The WWF headquarters are located in Switzerland, where the charity was founded in 1961 under the name World Wildlife Fund. Initially, the founders wanted to protect endangered species. With growth and success, the organization expanded its scope to include the preservation of biological diversity and the reduction of pollution.
Subsequently, in 1986, the World Wildlife Foundation became the World Wide Fund for Nature. Only the national branches in the United States and Canada still stick to the original name.
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Worldwatch Institute
Who are they?
An environmental research organization.
What do they do?
The Worldwatch Institute (WI) is a research center that works for an environmentally sustainable and socially just society that does not endanger the environment or future generations. WI was founded in 1974 and is based in Washington D.C. It employs around 30 people and has a number of international partners, such as the German Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Italian World Wildlife Foundation, and the UN Environment Programme.
Worldwatch has a rather broad mandate to conduct research on four research areas: people, nature, energy, and economy. This results in papers on population, food, water, urbanization, oceans, forests, infectious diseases, bioinvasions, pollution, materials use, energy, climate change, transportation, consumption, security, globalization and governance, sustainable economics, and information technology. The institute is best known for it is annual publication, “The State of the World.” The series attempts to identify the Earth’s most significant environmental challenges.
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