International corporations interested in joining the fight against global poverty can choose from a wide range of options, from charitable giving and standards compliance to policy advocacy, according to a new CGD report.
The report, Joining the Fight Against Global Poverty: A Menu for Corporate Engagement, suggests six approaches for corporations to consider. Based on interviews with senior executives at 15 firms with global reach, the report includes stories about what has worked (and what hasn't) and describes some of the advantages that companies have found in pursuing a developmental agenda.
The report was released last week at a meeting with corporate executives hosted by Covington & Burling, a leading Washington law firm that previously provided pro bono support to the Center's analytic work on the creation of an advance market commitment to stimulate the creation of life-saving vaccines for poor people in developing countries.
"In the last decade, more and more of the world's leading corporations have sought and found ways to join in the fight against global poverty," said CGD president Nancy Birdsall. "One of the guiding principles of this report is that corporations bring much more to the table than money. Financial resources are often necessary but corporations' skills, ideas, and ways of operating in the marketplace can make a much greater contribution," she said.
Firms whose activities are profiled in the report include Caterpillar, Citigroup, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, Merck, Novartis, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Proctor & Gamble. The six approaches are: standards compliance; charitable giving; resource engagement; commercial leverage; development entrepreneurship; and policy advocacy. The report was written by Staci Warden, a long-time friend and supporter of CGD.
Bruce McNamer, president and CEO of TechnoServe, a not-for-profit that supports entrepreneurship in developing countries, one of the keynote speakers at the event, praised the report for providing a comprehensive overview of a complex subject that is "both prescriptive and descriptive." TechnoServe supports companies working in all six areas, he said.
Another speaker, Jeffery Krilla, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. State Department, said that corporations and governments are increasingly working together to promote development. "We are seeing numerous innovative partnerships that seek to take advantage of the expertise and resources found in the public and private sectors to address new issues," he said.
CGD senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran, a specialist on private sector development who is leading CGD's corporate outreach work, said that in many poor countries, the lack of a middle class and an independent business sector is a major obstacle to development. "Companies that do business in developing countries are often already part of the solution," she said. "This report will help them to identify additional ways that they can do good and do well at the same time."