This is the fourth installment of reflections and impressions from the meetings of the WBCSD's Future Leaders Team (FLT) in India, with Sonia Medina (EcoSecurities) and Pramod Arikal (Allianz Group) reporting back on behalf of the FLT.
To get a flavor of the real India we left the comforts of the Infosys campus and headed into Bangalore. We started the morning off with an invigorating session with Amit Vatsyayan and Shrashtant Patara from Oxfam and Development Alternatives respectively. They gave us the much needed NGO perspective, which interestingly mirrors our views on the topic of business and development in many ways.
They made a number of interesting points on how businesses should engage with civil society. In particular, they stressed the need for the private sector to understand and empathize with the concerns, priorities and pressures that NGOs and communities face. They added that when engaging with NGOs and governments, companies should communicate their values first and then the business case for their actions. As both speakers work closely with communities on the ground, they provided a reality check on the development challenges in India particularly in terms of access to sanitation and safe drinking water as well as eco-migration. With such widespread poverty in India, we discussed whether the country’s middle and upper classes are ignoring these realities and living in denial. We had a quick sandwich bite for lunch as we rushed to beat the Bangalore traffic to visit one of the government schools supported by the Akshara Foundation. The motto or dream of Akshara is Every Child in School and Learning Well. Arvind and Ashok from the Foundation were there to welcome us and share their mission and vision for education in India. Interestingly both were well heeled corporate executives before they gave it all up to embark on giving back to society. This first visit left a deep impression on the group. Thanks to the work of the Foundation thousands of children have an opportunity to learn how to read and enjoy the pleasures of storytelling. The less than modest library is equipped with a computer connected to the internet, a world map and is also stocked with storybooks and comics in English and the local language. The Foundation today works in Karnataka where there are around 15 million children between the ages of 2 and 14. Their database today includes nearly all the children in Bangalore (around 1 million.) They “only” provide seed-financing and training until government authorities are ready to take charge after which they supervise for a few more months until they are satisfied with the progress. The innovation brought by this Foundation is a new simplified reading and counting methodology that tracks children’s reading progress. The results have been amazing, so much so, that kids who graduate from this school are near-par with those who attended “private” schools. The kids we met would have likely been under-skilled and unemployable in the future and now they are potential assets for companies. Although they may be reading in a small, cramped classroom with paint chipping off the walls and few of the facilities available to students in the developed world, it is clear that the commitment of the teachers and NGOs like Akshara will ensure these students have a pathway out of poverty. The knowledge economy, to use the cliché, is the reality of today and the future. It therefore makes perfect sense for companies to engage with Akshara and other foundations and help build assets for themselves. What is good for the society will be good for business. You can help by making a contribution, by volunteering and spreading the message. Akshara is on facebook, twitter, orkut and among other sites on the web. Next on the agenda was a trip to Mother Earth, a retail outlet set up by Neelam Chibber from Industree. We discussed Neelam’s work on our blog on day 2. The outlet is a living example of a company which has integrated sustainability into its business principles and practices. It was developed with great care and we all felt our purchases were contributing to something beyond the boundaries of the store. Every single one of us left the shop with a brown bag that read “sustainable shopper”. After an overview of the store’s partners and sourcing strategy, we visited a production facility to experience firsthand how their products are manufactured. Neelam explained how Industree has helped the artisans, designers and seamstresses/tailors establish their own manufacturing business. She explained that the objective is to ensure that the workers are the owners of the business and that there is a shift towards starting production facilities closer to the source of the inputs in rural India, rather than in urban centers. We are convinced that this is indeed a great example of a truly inclusive and responsible business. Our next stop was the bustling Commercial Street, one of the most popular shopping districts in Bangalore. Plenty of people, traffic, eager shopkeepers, roadside vendors, and diesel generators supplying subsidiary power to shops and restaurants, provided a taste of the energy, diversity and chaos of India. An Indian experience would not be complete without exploring some of the world-class buildings and hotels in the country. We had a table reserved at the Leela Palace and enjoyed a delicious Indian meal to celebrate what has been a great week together. We discuss and debate the definition of inclusive business at nearly every stop – finding ourselves in often heated discussions about the criteria, limits, business case and impact of inclusive business. We know that business is part of the solution but we are still unclear as to what form the solutions should take.
Disclaimer: The opinions shared in this blog entry are personal perspectives from the Future Leaders Team and do not express the opinions of the WBCSD or its member companies.
Background on the WBCSD Future Leaders Team
The WBCSD’s Future Leaders Team (FLT) is designed to enable future business leaders to become effective ambassadors for sustainable development through experiential learning, knowledge creation and the building of networks and skills.
The FLT 2009, launched in March 2009, is working closely with the WBCSD Development Focus Area to explore ways to drive positive change and influence development outcomes by looking for more inclusive business models that create new revenue streams while serving the needs of low-income communities. The first four months (March-June) were spent doing an individual project to measure and understand the way business contributes to development using the WBCSD Measuring Impact Framework. The second four months (July-October) will be spent preparing to advocate a future leaders’ business perspective on the role of business in development at the WBCSD’s Council Meeting in Washington DC in October.
The FLT is spending this week on Infosys’ campus in Bangalore, India, for their second of three meetings to reflect on the individual Measuring Impact projects, participate in a one day training workshop on stakeholder dialogue, run a future leaders dialogue, visit an inclusive business project and plan the second phase of the project. Throughout the week, the FLTs will be joined by experts from business and non-business who will share their perspectives on the role of business in development and the leadership skills needed to build a sustainable future in India and around the globe.
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