The following summaries are based on podcasts, recorded by Business Fights Poverty live in New York and Ottawa between the 24th-26th September 2008. The eight individual recordings are available on the Business Fights Poverty website; alternatively click on the individual speakers below to be taken straight to the relevant podcast.
Interviews with the winners of the 2008 World Business and Development Awards are also available; alternatively a brief summary of the winners is available on the ICC website.
During the event, three companies announced new commitments as part of the Business Call to Action: Ericsson, Yara and Map International. Brief interviews with these companies can be heard here.
speaking at the 2008 World Business and Development Awards, 24 September 2008.
Her Majesty Queen Rania praised the progress illustrated by the World Business and Development Awards, which represent a transformation of mindsets in the way we think about business and development. “Doing business with the poor can be an engine of growth and success”, and companies are finding exciting new ways to serve consumers at the bottom of the pyramid. However, the goal of halving global poverty by 2015 is seriously off track, and the power of the private sector is needed “to provide the kind of sustainable solution we can scale up to meet humanity’s needs”. Her Majesty focused in particular on the area of education, where the private sector should help to smooth the passage for the public sector “not exclusively from a profit perspective, but as an indispensable investment in the kind of employees, customers and communities on which long term success depends”.
“Today business leaders... are rewriting the value equation, to show that true worth comes not only from profits but form making a positive difference”
“Business is leading the charge of innovation for human development”
Head of UNDP, speaking at the 2008 World Business and Development Awards, 24 September 2008
Kemal Davis presented Global Partnership for the Business Call to Action, an initiative which aims to encourage more private sector companies to engage in inclusive business models. The initiative aims to move beyond traditional models and approaches to develop business initiatives at the grass roots level, and to show that approaches that deal with the poorest sections of markets can be profitable in the long term. Davis argued that laissez faire approaches alone will not end poverty, and the quality and capacity of public institutions must also play an important role; there is a need for good governance and effective regulation of the institutions that allow the private sector to do its job. Public and private actors, and the international community, must therefore work together to achieve success.
The Global Partnership for the Business Call to Action will “track commitments companies make and disseminate lessons on what works well for both businesses and poor communities, enabling good practices to be shared and replicated around the world”.
“The pursuit of wealth creation and human progress can be harnessed to work to everyone’s benefit”
“By reaching out to private business and by helping private business work in the development field, we can achieve the millennium development goals.”
Douglas Alexander
Douglas Alexander spoke on the British Governments Business Call to Action, to which more than 60 businesses have now signed up. He emphasised that the Call was not simply an exercise in corporate philanthropy, but recognition of the extent to which core business processes can be put in the service of global benefits; he therefore encouraged business leaders to take practical action, as the Call to Action continues, looking forward to 2015.
“It is hard to overstate the potential contribution the private sector and private enterprises can make.”
“What is so exciting.... is the recognition that there is a growing awareness among business that the contribution to the millennium development goals is no longer limited to what the company can give away, but how a company generates its own profits through its core business practices.”
Former Canadian Prime Minister, speaking at a Canadian Council on Africa event on Business and Development, 26 September 2008.
Paul Martin focused on the ways in which international organisations can help accelerate the thinking needed for the development of an African Common Market. He argued that “much of Africa’s ability to accelerate growth and reduce poverty is going to come from the degree to which it’s able to integrate” and therefore an African common market is a necessary condition for the alleviation of poverty. However, there is a need to recognise the problems small countries face by going into a common market with their bigger neighbours, and to find ways, such as establishment of a social development fund, to help these smaller African countries adjust to the greater competition posed by economic union. There is also a need for a number of countries to rethink their foreign aid policies, to ensure they do not hinder progress towards African integration.
“The link was very clear, between the reduction of poverty and the role of the private sector”
“African common market may not be a sufficient condition for the alleviation of poverty, but it is a necessary condition”
“The single greatest cause of the degradation of the Congo basin rainforest is the poverty of the indigenous population.....the only way that poverty is going to be alleviated is if there becomes a growing small business sector in the area”
“I believe [the private sector] is absolutely key to the reduction of poverty
“Africa’s small, segmented and shallow markets offer no economies of scale”
Former US President, speaking at the UN Private Sector Forum, 24 September 2008
Bill Clinton spoke on the need for agricultural self-sufficiency and sustainability, arguing that “agriculture lends itself naturally to be an antidote to the concentrated wealth and increasing inequality that every country on earth is struggling with”. He outlined the severe organisational and investment shortfalls currently preventing agricultural self-sufficiency, emphasising in particular the need to pay much more attention to issues of storage and marketing. The importance of the latter was illustrated by an assistance programme for Rwandan coffee growers, which culminated with 800 European retail outlets selling ‘Rwandan farmers’ coffee; the farmers involved are now earning twice the profit margin of fair trade coffee farmers because they are also involved in the marketing side.
“In 20 years from now most people in the world, whether they’re in rich countries, poor countries or countries in between, will be consuming more of their food from stocks grown within 100 miles of where they live”
“There is income to be earned, and stable economy to be developed, by empowering every single place on earth to be as energy efficient and self sufficient in the production of food as possible”