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In this section we feature a selection of the web resources featured in Enterprise Excellence (the project's ezine).These resources are all relevant to Transforming Business' theme - enterprise solutions to poverty.As it is rather a long list, we have divided them into 'General' resources, resources about 'Bridging the Digital Divide' that separates rich and poor (a barrier to development and an opportunity for business) and resources relating specifically to Africa, Asia and the role of China in Africa.In future we plan to add sections on the potential of business to contribute to social capital, including the latter's institutional, relational, moral and spiritual dimensions.Selected resources by Peter Heslam, director of Transforming Business, feature at the end of the 'General' section below.For a fuller list of Peter's resources that includes articles not available online, click here.General Business in the fight against poverty Opinion survey on business in development The survey found that leaders in all three sectors are agreed that business has a central role to play in development, chiefly in the creation of jobs and building local businesses. The report is entitled Business and International Development: Opportunities, Responsibilities and Expectations , available here. Jeffrey Sachs Professor Sachs is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. His book The End of Poverty is being vigorously discussed at the highest levels of government and economics the world over (see the books section of this Enterprise Excellence, the project's ezine, which features this book). As Director of the UN's Millennium Project, Sachs has overall responsibility for the report Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Download here. You don't have to be a student at Columbia to witness Sachs in action. The internet offers a selection of video and audio recordings made of his lectures. Simply scroll to the bottom of this web page. Globalization's potential Business solutions to poverty In fact it was more like two mini-lectures, one by the leading UK economist Professor John Kay and the other by Geoff Lye, Vice Chairman of SustainAbility Ltd. Following their presentations, the two speakers held a lively and compelling engagement with each other and with the audience. To hear for yourself, click here. Aid vs trade The author, Dr Kurt Hoffman (a Patron to Transforming Business), was involved in the development community, working closely with aid-based development NGOs, before becoming Director of the Shell Foundation. He became disillusioned, however, with aid as a solution to poverty. The report reflects this background, pointing instead to enterprise as the only sustainable route out of poverty. Unilever on business and development Burgmans laid out his views in the fourth Jelle Zijlstra Lecture by Professor Tony Atkinson, at the Free University of Amsterdam. For a transcript of his speech, see here. Burgmans' argument follows an earlier contribution to the debate about the role of business in development made by Hans Eenhoorn, former Senior Vice President of Unilever and member of the UN's Millennium Task Force on Hunger. His lecture on this issue, given at the Commonwealth Business Council conference at Chatham House, can be read here. Business and the Millennium Development Goals This report makes the business case for sustainable development by illustrating how the private sector is taking an active role in the achievement of the MDGs. Highlighting conducive social, legal and business frameworks as the most important factor affecting investment, the publication recommends that businesses invest in the development of strong regulatory and legal frameworks, building the capabilities of local enterprises, and improving core infrastructure. At the end of the report is a useful spreadsheet recording how some leading multinationals are actively seeking to fulfil the various MDGs. The report can be downloaded here. The hidden wealth of the poor In describing the origins of microfinance, it highlights the key role played by Opportunity International, a faith-based organization. See The Economist of 03-11-05 or click here. Support for business people Understanding entrepreneurship The document is available online here. The Kauffman Foundation, already a major sponsor of research on entrepreneurship, has announced a new release of its Entrepreneurship Research Portal - a clearinghouse for multi-disciplinary research on entrepreneurship. It also provides events listings and data sets targeted to the entrepreneurship research and policy community. The Entrepreneurship Research Portal can be visited by clicking here. Opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid The World Bank Institute is the capacity development arm of the World Bank. It aims to help countries share and apply global and local knowledge to meet the challenges of development. To this end, it has produced an excellent new report entitled Business Action for the MGDs: Private Sector Involvement as a Vital Factor in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The report is available here. Making entrepreneurship work in South Africa Thus argues Susan Anderson, fellow of the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, in a short article for the Free Market Foundation for South Africa. Read the full article here. To read a new report by Enterprise Africa! on the potential of the taxi industry in alleviating poverty in South Africa, click here. Reducing poverty through growth A distinguished panel addressed the theme 'Moving Out of Poverty Traps: From Vicious to Virtuous Poverty Circles.' More information and an online video recording, can be found here. Business and human rights A two-page response to the report by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) can be found here. Millennium Development Goals The eight Millennium Development Goals form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the world's leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest people. The goals are:
The resources we feature express the views of their authors, contributors and editors, not necessarily those of Transforming Business. The Commission on the Private Sector and Development of the United Nations has written a report on what is required to unleash the development potential of private entrepreneurship to drive growth, create jobs and lift incomes in developing countries. The report is available here. For a report by the UN on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the half-way stage between 2000 and 2015, click here. The World Bank also has a vision for development through enterprise. See its paper on this issue here. For a brief discussion paper by the World Bank Institute on the role of the private sector in meeting the MDGs, click here. The UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) has produced a report on the role of the private sector in eliminating poverty, available here. The Sustainable Livelihoods Experience seeks to showcase best practice in the contribution business makes to creating wealth, opportunities and markets in developing countries. For a six minute video, click here. Individual entrepreneurs and small firms are crucial to alleviating poverty in developing countries and recognition of this fact is growing. But entrepreneurial large firms also have a key role, not least in helping to provide the conditions in which small-scale entrepreneurship thrives and in actively encouraging local enterprise development. A report on this by the Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders Forum can be ordered here. The John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University also has a report on this issue, available here. For reports on what specific contributions to development can be made by various sectors of industry (including mining, finance, food and beverage, utilities, ICT, tourism, health care), click here. Anglo-American is one of the largest private sector investors and employers in Africa. To read about its commitment to the alleviation of poverty through the empowerment of private enterprise, click here. Unilever, a major multinational corporation, and Oxfam, a large development and humanitarian organisation, have undertaken a joint investigation into the impact of the company's core operations on poor people in Indonesia. The joint report is available here. The philanthropic activities of Shell, one of the world's most profitable companies, take place through the Shell Foundation. In an earlier edition of Enterprise Excellence we featured the Shell Foundation's report Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. That report argues that entrepreneurs in the developing world need to be put at the heart of poverty alleviation, rather than more aid and debt-relief. The Foundation has re-iterated this message in a recent publication entitled Down to Business. Both reports are available here. The CEO of SABMiller has written a reflection here on the alleviation of poverty from a business perspective. Fifty preeminent international leaders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors came together at the Aspen Institute for a roundtable entitled The Private Sector in the Fight against Global Poverty. The ensuing publication is available here. A report based on an earlier roundtable on America's Role in the Fight Against Global Poverty can be found here. Business leaders are increasingly managing operations in developing countries. While this often exposes them to issues of poverty, they often do not know which development practitioners to turn to for assistance. A report entitled A Business Guide to Development Actors has been put together to help them. Its publication reflects a growing openness amongst NGOs towards the role of enterprise in human development. How can companies contribute to economic development through their core business activities in ways that are both profitable and good for development? That is the central question addressed in a report drawn up by a business coalition entitled 'Doing Business with the World: The New Role of Corporate Leadership in Global Development', available here. The alleviation of poverty is thekey challenge for business. But the formal business sector barely touches many of the world's poor, who have to rely on the informal sector for their material needs. The Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders' Forum has produced a report that addresses this situation. The Executive Summary and order details for the full report are here. Four billion low-income consumers, the majority of the world's population, constitute the base of the economic pyramid (BoP). New empirical measures of their spending power suggest there are many business opportunities in serving their needs that have significant development potential. See the report by the International Finance Corporation and the World Resources Institute. Two business academics have written a on how profitable business and the creation of markets can be accomplished in contexts of deep poverty. They attempt to shift the focus away from whether to do BoP towards how to do BoP, from the perspective of corporate and competitive strategy. Click here for a link. The BoP idea is controversial. Two notable critiques are: 'Poverty Reduction for Profit? A Critical Examination of Business Opportunities at the Bottom of the Pyramid' by Jean-Louis Warnholz, Queen Elizabeth House Library, University of Oxford, 2007, available here. What positive impact can business have on the employment and enterprise prospects of young people within the Arab world? This is an important question for developing countries, which tend to have large numbers of economically disempowered young adults, who can become easy prey for extremist organizations. A sourcebook showcasing business-led employment initiatives in the Arab region is available here. Business can also play a central and creative role in the socio-economic development of Eastern Europe. That is the conclusion of a report issued by the Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders' Forum, available here. The Oxford economist Paul Collier has helped draw attention to the plight of the bottom billion of the world's poor in his recent book The Bottom Billion (reviewed in the Books section of this edition of Enterprise Excellence). The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has made a speech declaring 2008 to be the year of the bottom billion. A business school in the Netherlands has received support from the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch banking giant ING Bank to produce A Billion to Gain? - a study of the involvement of global banks in the provision of microfinance in developing countries. Economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty, particularly in Asia. Two billion people, however, are expected to be added to the world's population over the next couple of decades, most of them in low-income countries, meaning their governments need to implement policies that support pro-poor growth. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank provide assistance in this by way of their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), which are available here. In addition, a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), a low-interest facility for low-income countries, has been developed by the IMF. PRGF-supported programmes are underpinned by comprehensive country-owned poverty reduction strategies. For a factsheet on PRGF, click here. Two organizations that report on the level of economic freedom enjoyed by particular countries are:
The fair trade movement and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are gaining momentum as western consumers become increasingly sensitive to ethical issues in business. But do they have any more than symbolic value? For a critical assessment of the fair trade movement, see a paper by Philip Booth and Linda Whetstone here. For a critique of CSR by Deborah Doane, click here. Several recent editions of the journal Economic Affairs have focused on issues relevant to enterprise solutions to poverty. See, for instance, Vol 25, no 2; Vol 26, no 4; Vol 27, no 2; Vol 27, no 3. Subscriptions and back issues can be ordered here. Online resources by Peter Heslam, the director of Transforming Business, that relate to the transformative role of business include the following:
Bridging the Digital Divide The International Telecommunication Union (ITC) is the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). Its aim is help the world communicate in ways that benefit economic development. Together with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), it produces annual World Information Society Reports. The most recent, published here, reports that the number of people using ICTs around the world has doubled over the past decade. There are now around three billion mobile phones users. The economist CK Prahalad is one of the leading advocates of the idea that there are vast unexploited markets for products and services aimed at the millions of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid. His book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid is reviewed in this edition of Enterprise Excellence here. For a strategy paper he has co-authored with Allen Hammond that makes a business case for bridging the digital divide, click here. ICT companies are often amongst the most willing to accept the business case for economic development. Several of them have initiatives specifically designed to help bridge the digital divide. A recent policy paper published by Vodafone and Nokia focuses on how mobile phones, which are used increasingly widely in developing countries, can be used to provide secure financial services. The report can be downloaded here. Hewlett Packard is also active in this area, especially by way of its e-inclusion initiative, details of which are available here. The positive contribution mobile phones can make to economic development is not limited to financial services. In remote and inaccessible places they also substitute for travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable traders to reach wider markets and generally oil the wheels of business in ways that are taken for granted in high-income countries. For a recent article in the Economist on the economic benefits of mobile phones, click here. A working paper published by the Acumen Fund argues that, in a similar way to applications of the Internet, the utilization of mobile phones in developing countries to develop and deliver products and services will act as a model and catalyst for entrepreneurs across a range of markets that may have little to do with mobile telephony. The paper, 'Going Wireless: Dialing for Development', can be downloaded here. The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) maintains that success stories in the area of ICT and development can inspire change. It therefore showcases and awards communities in developing countries that have used ICT to achieve economic uplift - click here to download stories. For a GKP report on the specific impact ICT can have on poverty in Asia, click here. Together with the Swiss Agency for Development it has published ICT4D - Connecting People for a Better World, downloadable here. The Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC) is involved in a number of strategic partnerships designed to foster innovative approaches to development. A FDC publication entitled Digital Dividend or Digital Divide?, focusing on the role of ICT in poverty reduction, is available here. For a report published by the Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government, the World Resources Institute and the Global Challenge Network that uses case studies to make a business case for the role of ICT in development, click here. A recent Wall Street Journal article here documents the demise of Nicolas Negroponte's dream of a $100 laptop for every child in the developing world. The idea has, however, caught the imagination of engineers and technology entrepreneurs and is unlikely to die out completely if a viable business model can be found. Some primary schools in low-income countries have been selected for trials, the children taking their laptops home at the end of every school day to complete homework. A detailed survey has been made of the adoption of mobile phones in Keralam, an Indian state with a large fishing industry. The findings show a marked improvement in welfare resulted for consumers and producers alike. The study has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics here. A summary and discussion of the findings in the Economist is available here. The International Finance Corporation and the Financial Times have recently begun to co-host annual essay competitions on business and development. One Bronze Prize winning essay entitled 'ICTs as Appropriate Technologies for African Development' is available here. Most forms of ICT depend on electricity, whereas millions of households in the developing world have no access to it. The Energy and Development Report 2000, published by the World Bank and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme, have sought to identify how technological and commercial innovations and improvements in the investment climate can help solve this problem. The report is available here. More recently, the John F Kennedy School of Governance at Harvard University has produced a report here on the role of the utilities sector in expanding economic opportunity. Many homes in developing countries without electricity are filled with smoke from internal fires. For a New York Times article about a partnership between the Shell Foundation and Envirofit International to introduce the first market based model for providing clean-burning stove technology to the developing world, click here. Resources relevant to enterprise solutions to poverty that focus on Asia, Africa and the role of China in Africa. (For books on this subject, click here.) Asia The journal China & World Economy appears bi-monthly under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As the only English-language journal in China devoted to the Chinese economy and its place in the world economy, it aims to provide foreign readers with objective and up-to-date analysis. Click here for further information. The privatization of some of China's state-owned enterprises has been achieved with limited compromise to social welfare responsibilities, and significant gain in firm performance. This is the finding of three Chinese researches in a paper available here. While China's economic growth brings prosperity to many, large numbers of poor people live in remote rural areas, particularly in the country's western provinces. For a World Bank article that claims that local government should aim to provide an enabling environment for rural enterprise development, click here. An article here from the China Daily claims that the rise of China's 150 million entrepreneurs and freelance professionals are gradually being recognized as crucial to the country's economic development. It also reports that many of these entrepreneurs are keen for the Chinese government to allow private sector investment in state-owned companies and that private enterprises and state-owned enterprises should receive equal treatment when applying for bank loans. The UK government's Department for International Development publishes Developments, a high quality quarterly magazine on economic development. The latest edition (issue 39) focuses on India. Subscriptions to the print version are free and articles can be downloaded for free here. It is well known, due to massive media interest, that the World Economic Forum (WEF) meets every year in Davos. Less well known is that it also meets in other centres, such as New Delhi, Beijing and Cape Town. The recent India summit, held in Delhi, explored the many facets of the country's economic, social and political transformation with leaders from all sectors and from around the world. A report is available here. The CEO of BT, Ben Verwaayen, who acted as co-chair, has made his diary reflections on the summit available here. In a speech at the summit, Mr Verwaayen highlighted the mass migration that is taking place from India's rural areas and suggested that the spread of technology and the opportunities it provides should help to stem the flow to the cities. To see his short webcast on the eve of the summit, click here. Asia's top young entrepreneur has been identified. BusinessWeek.com has sponsored an on-line contest to select Asia's most promising entrepreneur under the age of 30. The winner is N Nguyen Minh Tri from Vietnam, who at only 25 has already started two companies: My World World (a Web 2.0 firm) and Viet Tech (which supports outsourced information technology operations). Nguyen is typical of many new Vietnamese entrepreneurs who operate successfully in both the East and the West - his firms have offices in both Ho Chi Minh City and Portland, Oregon. The quality of the runners up in the competition reflect the new dynamism of Asia's entrepreneurial culture. More... East Asian economies still rely heavily on knowledge flows from Japan and the US, but the region's economies are beginning to build their own home-based knowledge industries as well. Patenting and CIT activity is growing, especially in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, continue to lag behind. These are some of the key findings of a new World Bank study of innovation in East Asia, available here. India is at the epicentre of the global 'innovation shift.' The country is no longer simply a low cost business location but has become a major innovator in its own right. While SMEs are becoming a bigger part of the innovation eco-system, 96% of large firms expect to increase spending on innovation in the next 3-5 years. Indian business does face considerable challenges, however, including skills shortages, difficulties in collaborating with universities and government agencies, and a lack of an internal corporate focus on innovation as a strategy for growth and competitiveness. These are the findings of the recent report Innovation in India by the National Knowledge Commission. Africa Africa's economic prospects are steadily improving. According to a report by the International Monetary Fund, growth in sub-Saharan Africa should reach 6.75 percent in 2008, thereby sustaining the good performance of many regions in recent years. Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing its strongest growth and lowest inflation in over 30 years. The Doing Business reports are annual surveys of enterprise around the world, produced by the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank. The Doing Business 2008 report contains good news for Africa. Mauritius comes out top in Africa for ease of doing business and Ghana and Kenya show strong economic reform. This was recognized at the launch of the European launch of the report, at which the Finance Ministers from Ghana and Kenya, and the Finance Secretary from Mauritius, received World Bank awards. The current crisis in Kenya casts a particularly long shadow, therefore, over an otherwise promising country. Economic growth is not sufficient to alleviate poverty but it is absolutely necessary. The most effective way, therefore, in which governments and donors can contribute to development is by enabling business - large and small, domestic and foreign - to flourish. As most people in developing countries depend on a vibrant private sectorfor their livelihoods, aid should target the constraints of inadequate infrastructure, poor governance, and an economic and regulatory climate that is often hostile to investment. That is the argument of a report called Path to a Prosperous Africa: A Business Perspective. If sustained economic growth and improved competitiveness are key to the generation of income and employment in Africa, private investment needs to increase. The World Bank has two programmes - the Africa Private Sector Development initiative and the Africa Regional Program on Enterprise Development (RPED) - which aim to support the drivers of growth and help foster an enabling environment, thereby reducing the costs and risks to business. A number of papers and other resources are available via these weblinks. A report entitled Key to Growth: Supporting South Africa's Emerging Entrepreneurs claims that there is a growing consensus amongst South African politicians, journalists, academics, civil society representative and business leaders that entrepreneurship should be vigorously encouraged in the fight against poverty. The report claims, however, that there is a lack of focus in carrying out the necessary reforms, and that misconceptions about the meaning and purpose of entrepreneurship abound. The report is produced by the leading South African development think tank, the Centre for Development and Enterprise, which has a special focus on the role of business in development. It can be downloaded here. The Smith Institute, founded in memory of John Smith, the former leader of the UK's Labour Party, has produced a report on the role of science, technology and innovation in economic growth in Africa. Experts in international development contribute essays that take a risk-taking, problem-solving approach to African development. The Forward is by Gordon Brown. The renowned development economist William Easterly has written an article here in which he argues that the way progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is measured paints a far too bleak picture of Africa. The Commission for Africa, founded by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister, published a substantial report in 2005 entitled Our Common Interest with the aim of helping Africa to become a strong and prosperous continent. Copies of the report are available here. The United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa produces annual economic reports on Africa, available here. China in Africa What drives China's increasing involvement in Africa and are the implications for Africa's development? An IMF Working Paper here assesses China's multifaceted influence as market, donor, financer, investor, contractor and builder. The paper argues that, although China's public sector, particularly state financial institutions, has been central to Sino-African relations, the influence of China's private sector is increasing. It ends by signalling what the economic implications of this might be. What can Africa learn from China's success against poverty? Until recently, China had a higher poverty rate than Africa, whereas now it is one of the world's leading economies. One important lesson for Africa is the importance of productivity growth in smallholder agriculture. Another is the importance of strong leadership and a capable public administration at all levels of government. These are the findings of a World Bank research paper located here. What about the ethics of China's growing role in Africa? Are there implications for Africa in the area of corruption, human rights and the development of democracy? Two articles that address this area are by:
At the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town in June 2007, Li Zhaoxing, until recently China's Foreign Minister said the relationship with Africa remains a priority for China and that the close partnership between the regions would allow both to better address the challenges of globalization. He declared that trade between China and Africa had trebled over the last five years and that over 800 Chinese companies have set up on the continent. He committed China to working with Africa to improve the living standards of ordinary Africans and to create a climate of greater peace and prosperity. More here. |