Marks & Spencer is to provide business advice and expertise to
entrepreneurs in an effort to improve wealth generation in developing
countries.
The ‘pro-poor’ initiative will be carried out with the Shell
Foundation, the oil company’s charitable wing, as an initial 12-month
programme in which M&S and Shell employees will advise managers of
small businesses, initially South African wild flower growers on the
Agulhas Plain, where unemployment is 80 per cent. M&S hopes to
assist 3000 growers – and at the same time increase the quantity of
wild flowers available in its stores.
Mike Barry, head of CSR at M&S, said it was in his company’s
interests to aid entrepreneurs in the flower trade. ‘Our customers are
clamouring to buy more flowers harvested from the wild, but suppliers
haven’t got the capacity to provide them,’ he said. ‘The partnership
will help small enterprises overcome a lack of business expertise,
which is a major barrier preventing us from doing more business with
them.’
The Shell Foundation will invest up to $1million (£550,000) over 12
months to support the work in South Africa. Details of two other
similar M&S projects will be announced shortly.
The emphasis in all three projects will be on offering commercial and
technological support from business consultants or seconded staff.
M&S and Shell will also concentrate on improving the social and
environmental performance of small businesses. If successful, the new
approach could be used at M&S suppliers elsewhere, and the Shell
Foundation hopes other retailers will follow suit. M&S feels the
project gives retailers a commercial, rather than a purely
philanthropic, reason to be involved in poverty alleviation.
The foundation, which was set up with £250m from Shell in 2000,
announced this year that it wanted to recruit western companies willing
to support wealth generation in developing countries where they have an
interest (EP7, issue 1, p9). Its partnership with M&S is the first
step in this direction.
In a separate initiative, the foundation recently set up a $100m fund
with GroFin Capital, an African financial institution, to provide
capital for African businesses.
The East Africa Small Enterprise Fund will offer between $50,000 and
$1m to businesses through African banks. Chris West, the foundation’s
deputy director, said: ‘While there is finance available for families
to set up tiny businesses to buy assets like sewing machines, that
model will never reach the scale required to have a major impact on
reducing poverty. This fund makes it easier for new enterprises to gain
access to larger amounts of finance.’
US-based Abbott Laboratories has formed a partnership with the Malawi
government to start the country’s first clinic providing care and
treatment for children with HIV and Aids. The Fortune 100 company will
give $1.5m to build the clinic and fund the running costs for three
years as part of its Step Forward programme, under which it works with
Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine to help children with HIV and Aids
in developing countries.
