UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Presidents of Rwanda and Ghana, chief executives and board chairs from some of the world's largest and most prestigious companies, high-level UK ministers and United Nations representatives came together today in London to discuss how business can use its core activities to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Representing the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), President Bjorn Stigson signed the Business Call to Action Declaration.
In July 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched the Call to Action, a global effort to accelerate progress on achieving the MDGs. With the target year for meeting them only seven years away, faster progress is needed now. As part of the Call to Action, the Business Call to Action is focused on getting big business to support economic growth in developing countries and help put the world on track for achieving the MDGs.
The WBCSD focuses on being a leading business advocate on sustainable development and participating in policy development to create the right framework conditions for business to make an effective contribution to sustainable human progress. One key objective of the WBCSD's Development Focus Area is to catalyze a mind-set shift in larger companies to do business with the low-income segment - the majority of the world's population.
The business call to action resonates with the WBCSD's approach to development because it focuses on business action through core business activities. This has the potential to achieve so much more than philanthropic or social investment programs that are rarely designed to be profitable and hence self-sustaining.
Business cannot act in isolation, and there is urgent need for collaborative action. The call to action rightly refers to the fact that “it is only by acting together in a genuine partnership that we can succeed.” The WBCSD has long advocated that business is part of the solution to sustainable development challenges, and that there is a collective responsibility to work together to address them.
Economic growth is critical to poverty alleviation and business is the prime driver of economic growth. But why should business engage? In the near term, business engagement around social and development issues is increasingly seen as a proactive way to manage external risks and underpin the business license to operate. In the long term, the emerging economies are the growth markets of tomorrow.
The WBCSD advocates for market based solutions to development challenges. It believes that the leading global companies of the future will be those that do business in ways that address the world's major challenges, including poverty and inequity. Large corporations can make business more inclusive – that is, set up sustainable business models that are both profitable and benefit low-income communities where that business operates.
Companies can look to include the low-income segment in their value chain through direct employment, as suppliers, as distributors/retailers, as service providers, as well as the consumers of affordable products and services that improve their overall quality of life. The idea is to seek out business opportunities that are both profitable and have a positive development benefit, and to work with governments and other development actors to establish an enabling policy framework to support this type of business.
To successfully integrate the private sector view into the debate on development cooperation, it is crucial that the role of business be viewed beyond the provision of resources. Business should be brought to the table as a key enabler of social and economic progress and as a key stakeholder in the efforts to achieve sustainable development.
The WBCSD actively works in the search for inclusive business solutions through its strategic Alliance with SNV Netherlands Development Organization. The Alliance is currently brokering inclusive business in 7 Latin American countries. Examples of the opportunities currently being pursued include agricultural supply chain initiatives; the construction of homes for the low-income segment; the improvement of the quality and traceability of coffee; the expansion of the biofuels market across the region (liquefied petroleum gas for vehicles and biodigesters); and the development of microsinsurance and mobile banking services.
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