Inclusive Business
Accreditation

IB is a new concept and there is a lot of impact self-claiming in the market. Governments find it problematic to target to so many companies when the social impact is not officially established. Hence the need for a public IB accreditation system. 

Formal IB accreditation, typically done jointly by government agencies and business associations, is important to ensure ownership on selecting IB companies, especially when such accreditation is linked to incentives for companies. 

In various countries, IB accreditation is a national process done jointly by key government agencies and business associations. It is based on detailed company interview in the field and further assessment of the companies on their IB eligibility. The actual accreditation is based on a weighted assessment tool with 30 transparent criteria and 90 country- and sector-specific benchmarks. The criteria emphasize (a) commercial viability (looking at  revenue, growth, profitability, bankability, addressing business risks, adherence to social and environmental safeguard standards, company governance), (b) deliberate design for achieving social impact (looking at reach, targeting, women empowerment, depth and comprehensiveness of social solutions, contribution to systemic poverty transformation in the region and the sector), (c)  innovations for the BoP (Base of Pyramid sector) (business, technology, social, climate and environmental), as well as (d) the strategic intent of the company to create scaled up, innovative and relevant results for the poor and low-income people. The tool is designed so that companies across sectors and across different company sizes can be compared. Various countries in Africa and Asia have already institutionalized IB accreditation, and our consulting team was instrumental to this.

Our team has in-depth experience in setting up IB accreditation systems. We can offer assistance to the government (and other stakeholders) to

• Set up and institutionalize such accreditation system
• Brief and orient the members of the IB accreditation committee 
• Serve as back-stoppers for doing IB accreditation on a regular (yearly) basis. To this end we would work with local consultants that can do – for the government – on a regular basis the identification of potential IB companies, the interviews of such companies, the initial rating, and the preparation of background information for the official IB accreditation. 
• Prepare awareness raising initiatives for government and business associations to find companies with potential IB business line (including doing IB surveys among their member companies)
• Document the IB accreditation process, for transparent information through the government and business associations.
• Help organizing the follow-up IB awards
• We will ensure global, national and regional  consistency of the IB accreditation work