The global ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference on agriculture, food security and climate change was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from 31 October to 5 November 2010. The Broker hosted an online discussion blog where participants agreed that agric…

Social enterprises are on the rise in developing countries. Mark Joaquin Ruiz, co-founder and managing director of MicroVentures Inc. in the Philippines, talks about the role of social business enterprises in empowering the poor, and explains what…

The Broker was in New York to blog from the United Nation’s (UN) Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We invited policy makers, academics and representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to discuss the Summit and long-t…

Anticipation was building up around the UN headquarters yesterday morning. The traffic was, too. With almost the entire east side of the city in lock-down, roaring helicopters above our heads and an NYPD checkpoint on every corner, the arrival of…

It seems New York City provides a fitting backdrop to the UN MDG summit. The city has many contrasting faces, as do the summit and the MDG-related side events.As the official conference kicked off yesterday only a few blocks away, I found myself i…

Forget sustainability, for now. First, we have to get through the bottleneck of the 21st century when the human population will peak at nine billion, the earth’s temperature will increase by 3-5 degrees Celcius and a significant portion of the pla…