Edited by Lloyd Timberlake. WBCSD, 90 pages. Electronic. Free.
Business for development is the latest online publication from the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, timed to coincide
with the UN Summit in New York to review progress on the Millennium
Development Goals. Its release reflects the upsurge of interest in the
role of business in poor communities, following the popularization of
the Bottom of the Pyramid model by the Indian academic and business
strategist C.K. Prahalad. The central message is that business has a
significant contribution to make in tackling poverty through
initiatives that support development, and that ‘Business is good for
development and development is good for business’.
Drawing on 14 case studies from among WBCSD’s corporate membership, the
report is organized around three areas of business contribution:
investing in core infrastructure, building the capabilities of local
enterprises, and helping to create a strong regulatory and legal
framework. While the first two are well illustrated with examples, the
third amounts to little more than a restatement of the general case for
good governance. Anybody hoping for a critical review of business and
development will be disappointed. There is little discussion of the
downsides of business involvement in development and despite claiming
the need to go beyond philanthropy, little evidence is produced. As a
result, it reads like a showcase for all the good things WBCSD members
are doing, with the underlying leitmotif that the best way to tackle
poverty is to open up free trade and promote an investor-friendly
climate.
Those engaged in corporate responsibility in developing countries will
find confirmation of what they probably already know, rather than new
ideas. For instance, there is no indication of systematic performance
measuring and reporting of company impacts on the Millennium
Development Goals. In this sense, the report is a fair reflection of
the immaturity of the business and development debate.
Nevertheless, this is a timely publication that contains many good
examples and useful arguments – and as such is a welcome contribution
on a rapidly expanding subject.
Wayne Visser, International Centre
for Corporate Social Responsibility, author, speaker and consultant on
corporate responsibility.
