Inclusive businesses are economically profitable, environmentally and socially responsible initiatives that use market mechanisms to improve the quality of life of people with low incomes, by enabling:
• Active participation in the value chain of the formal economy as providers of raw materials, as agents adding value to goods or services, or as sellers or distributors of goods or services; and/or
• Access to basic or essential services of good quality at a reasonable price; and/or
• Purchase of products or services that increase their productivity or welfare in ways that allow them to enter a “virtuous cycle” of increased business opportunities or socio-economic benefits.
AVINA has been exploring opportunities to promote social change, including the role that business plays in society. Using different strategies, the organization has always tried to respond to the question: What should we do so that the company is operating at its fullest potential, minimizing negative externalities against the environment and society? One example of this is that, together with its Founder, partners and allies, AVINA was a leader in creating the concepts of corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line, putting them into practice and promoting them in the region.
In 2007 AVINA conducted a survey among its 17 local representatives, which indicated that the organization has supported 78 processes of the INCLUSIVE BUSINESS approach in 12 countries and 7 economic sectors. Based on the definition of this concept and an analysis of the experience that both AVINA and its partners have in IB, AVINA continues to reflect on its role. AVINA believes it goes beyond the conceptual definition, to instead propose ways to build and contribute to the implementation of collective action agendas, which use market mechanisms to help alleviate poverty and improve social and environmental indicators for a group or community of people. Due to the magnitude of the problems of inequality and poverty, AVINA especially seeks to promote initiatives that will grow and achieve scale, thus impacting a large number of people. AVINA is not alone on this road, since its closest institutional allies – GrupoNueva, FUNDES, WRI, Ashoka, SEKN and INCAE, among others – also have working strategies on INCLUSIVE BUSINESS.