NEW YORK, 24 September 2008: Ten private companies were recognized today for their work in improving the lives of the world’s most disadvantaged people. From a family-owned soybean business in Ghana, to one of the leading telecommunications companies in the Philippines, these firms prove that making a profit and ‘doing the right thing’ are not mutually exclusive.
Held under the patronage of queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade, the Award Ceremony is part of the special focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during the opening week of the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York.
The World Business and Development Awards (WBDA) showcase creative initiatives by corporations, large and small, who apply their core business expertise to world-wide efforts to achieve the MDGs. In total this year’s winners improved the lives of millions of poor people across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
– Today, business leaders like all of you are rewriting the value equation —to show that true worth comes not only from profits but from making a positive difference, said queen Rania in her address to the Awardees. – More and more, when we look at some of the cruelest challenges our human family faces, we find it is business leading the charge of innovation for human development —inventing new tools, initiating new partnerships, re-imagining service delivery… to bring life-saving vaccines and life-altering technologies into the hands of the poor.
– Government is certainly responsible for piloting the great ships that our nations are, and Heads of State certainly need to navigate them well, added president Wade. – But government is not the whole ship. The health of the vessel depends on the determination, will, creativity and productivity of the passengers it carries. This I see as the greatest role of business. Participate, build, lead, grow and be the wind in the sails or the bio fuel in our national engine.
This year’s award winners include projects that provide Nigerian farmers with commercial finance and technical assistance to produce higher quality crops, expand electricity to the poorest neighbourhoods of Brazil, raise awareness about hiv/aids with pioneering mobile games in India and provide credit services to the poor through mobile phones in Kenya.
The WBDA winners prove that companies can be an engine of both growth and development. By mobilizing human and financial resources, they can be a valuable source of innovation and can promote positive change. Business can create domestic employment and wealth, and promote an entrepreneurial spirit, all of which contribute directly to reaching the MDGs.
– As the world becomes more interdependent, doing business with the poor has shown not only to be a potential boost to a company’s competiveness, but also —with the right business model— to be a force in the fight against poverty, said Kemal Derviş, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). – We are presenting a new approach to develop long-term business initiatives to harness the resources and talents that are the central strength of global business. This is a potent demonstration of our collective commitment to being a strong partner to the private sector in furthering shared aims.
It’s this spirit that led to the formation of The Global Partnership for the Business Call to Action, launched earlier today at a lunch hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the day before his High-Level Event on the MDGs. The CEOs of Yara, Ericsson and Map International announced new initiatives that attempt to tackle food shortages in Mozambique and Tanzania, improve access to financial services for more than two million people living in rural Uganda and develop mobile applications that focus on health solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa.
These companies are an integral part of a movement to enable the poor to access speedy flows of information, money and business expertise as well as creating new employment opportunities.
– I am pleased that companies like Yara, Map International and Ericsson have joined the Business Call to Action, said Douglas Alexander, UK Secretary of State for International Development. – Business has a vital role to play in reducing poverty and the involvement of these companies in the Business Call to Action will help accelerate progress towards increasing growth in developing countries and meeting the MDGs by 2015. This is a crucial year for businesses, governments, non-governmental organizations, faith groups and citizens. The time has come to step up activity to meet the MDGs and ensure a safer, developed and more prosperous world.
The Global Partnership aims to increase momentum and mobilize the efforts of the private sector to support growth in developing countries and contribute to the achievement of the Goals. Companies, that signed up to the Business Call to Action in May are challenged to develop specific core business initiatives and turn their signatures into concrete action. A Business Call to Action Secretariat will be formed to monitor these initiatives and assess their contribution to fighting poverty and eradicating hunger.
The WBDA and the Business Call to Action are not about philanthropy. They challenge companies to use their core business —whether it be manufacturing, finance or telecommunications— in a way that contributes both to sustainable development and to their own commercial success. They aim to inspire CEOs and companies to realize that reducing poverty also makes good business sense.
Initiatives like the WBDA and the Business Call to Action aim to build awareness of the MDGs in the business community and to share lessons on what works well for both businesses and the world’s poor in the hope that it can be replicated globally.
Kilde: UNDP
