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Enterprise Excellence 3Here we provide a selection of resources relevant to our focus on enterprise solutions to poverty that have been noted in previous editions of Enterprise Excellence (EE).For many people in developing countries, access to appropriate information and communication technology is crucial to their prospects of escaping poverty. Providing such access represents a significant opportunity to business. There are strong incentives for change, therefore, on both sides of the divide. As this means that information and communication technology (ICT) is of particular importance in poverty alleviation, we have divided the resources below into general resources and resources explicitly to do with bridging the digital divide.Both sections contain resources relevant to entrepreneurship, whether at the individual level or on the part of large multinational corporations.At the bottom of this page, you can click on links that will take you to resources on specific regions and to resources produced by Peter Heslam.Future editions of EE will provide selections of resources relating to the role of social capital, including its institutional, relational, moral and spiritual components.The resources we feature express the views of their authors, contributors and editors, not necessarily those of Transforming Business.Resources on enterprise solutions to poverty. General 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 nonprofit 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. 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 [insert a link to the review of Prahalad in my selection of books]. 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 in Asia and Africa (the above resources are not specific to these continents), can be found here. Resources by Peter Heslam that are available online are listed here and a full list of his resources is here. |