Mobile phones: the single most transformative technology for development

Mobile phones are clearly business4good. I have read plenty of articles about specific solutions using mobile phones in the developing world - including the Kenyan mobile4good example. This this BusinessWeek article sums it up nicely:

"What would a Kenyan farmer want with a mobile phone?
Plenty, as it turns out. To the astonishment of the industry, people living on a few dollars a day have proven avid phone users, and in many parts of the world cellular airtime has become a de facto currency. The reason is simple: A mobile phone can dramatically improve living standards by saving wasted trips, providing information about crop prices, summoning medical help, and even serving as a conduit to banking services.

Mobile phones are changing developing markets faster than anyone imagined. Today there are some 3 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, and that will grow to 5 billion by 2015, when two-thirds of the people on earth will have phones, predicts Finnish handset maker Nokia"

ile phones are changing developing markets faster than anyone imagined. Today there are some 3 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, and that will grow to 5 billion by 2015, when two-thirds of the people on earth will have phones, predicts Finnish handset maker Nokia Corp."

Jeffrey Sachs even calls cell phones "...the single most transformative technology for development".

Read the full article in BusinessWeek.

The World needs a Global Marshall Plan

During Germany's G8 presidency I picked up an interesting initiative: The Global Marshall Plan. Their brochure featured the who is who on making globalization more fair, incl. Stiglitz, Yunus, Al Gore etc.

Coming from Germany which was rebuilt with the help of the Marshall plan after WWII it's very interesting seeing this idea taken onto a global level. It's certainly bigger and more complex but aiming for the right thing - a fairer globalization! Do you think it's possible?

"The Global Marshall Plan aims at a "World in Balance". To achieve this we need a better design of globalization and the global economic processes - a worldwide Eco-Social Market Economy. This is a matter of an improved global structural framework, sustainable development, the eradication of poverty, environmental protection and equity, altogether resulting in a new global 'economic miracle'."

Move your cursor over the animation to learn more about the initiative:

Bill Gates Calls for More Creative Capitalism to Reduce Inequality

Bill Gates is one of the best examples of business leaders changing their way to strive towards doing good. Earlier this year Bill Gates gave an interesting speech on tackling inequities at Harvard.

I like his down to business approach to reduce poverty:

"Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause—and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it? For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have?

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age—biotechnology, the computer, the Internet—give us a chance we’ve never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease... You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how—in this age of accelerating technology—we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism—if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.

Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives."

What a final call for action: “From those to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Watch the video or read the transcript.

Thanks to Max Oliva from ie

The Economist & CSR: From Foes to Friends

What a difference two years can make. CSR has made it into mainstream:

Economist '2005 :
The respected conservative weekly was pretty much on the side of Milton Friedman's "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits". It dismissed CSR not only as a superficial PR exercise but even dismissed as counterproductive. "CSR cannot be a substitute for wise policies in these areas. In several little-noticed respects, it is already a hindrance to them...To improve capitalism, you first need to understand it. The thinking behind CSR does not meet that test."

Economist '2007:
It seems that the benefits that have been well documented (e.g. in Michael Porter's article) for some time, are becoming mainstream finally. In response to a CSR-critical book “Supercapitalism” the Economist writes:
"[D]one well, CSR can motivate employees and strengthen brands, while also providing benefits to society. Understanding and responding to the social context in which firms operate is increasingly a source of new products and services, observes Jane Nelson of the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum. Telling firms they need not act responsibly might cause them to under-invest in these opportunities, and to focus excessively on short-term profits."

Simon Zadek, the boss of AccountAbility summarizes the state of CSR in a nice way: “The ‘whether in principle' conversation about CSR is over,” he says. “What remains is ‘What, specifically, and how?'”. Answers to these important questions is what the UN Global Compact with its local networks in over 70 countries tries to foster. And this blog highlights some of outstanding business4good cases.

Thanks to the Triple Bottom Line Blog

Business–NGO Partnerships Help the World’s Poorest

During the International Trade Forum leading businesses including Adidas, BP and Procter & Gamble committed to CSR:

“We believe that the leading global companies of 2020 will be those that provide goods and services and reach new customers in ways that address the world's major challenges — including poverty, climate change, resource depletion, globalization and demographic shifts.”

The full article on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) website also features a few illustrative example of 'business4good' practices:

• Unilever is integrating social innovation strategies in its business operations. In India, it teamed up with NGOs to create Shakti, a rural network that sells products adapted to rural customers in more than 100,000 villages, employing 31,000 women. In Indonesia, it teamed up with Oxfam to research and assess the impact of production and distribution processes on poor communities. (Sources: Unilever, Oxfam)
• Procter & Gamble worked with research institutes and other organizations to create a low-cost ($0.01/litre) water purification product. PuR is mixed with water and filtered through a cloth to remove bacteria, viruses and parasites. One billion people lack access to safe drinking water. Relief agencies use PuR to provide clean drinking water during emergency relief operations. (Source: P&G Health Sciences Institute)
• Cemex, the world's third largest construction materials firm, has been working with Ashoka fellows to help more than 30,000 low-income families to build affordable, decent houses for themselves. Participants enter a savings and credit programme, get assistance to plan construction work, and benefit from services such as material storage, delivery and price guarantees for two years. This helps the company reach new customers it could not serve before, while helping poor families to improve their living conditions. (Source: Ashoka)

The WBCSD article also talks about tthe rise of social entrepreneurship and poverty as a business challenge. A pretty good read and nice update summary on how business can do good.

The Top 20 NGOs/UN Agencies according to Business

Dalberg, the Global Compact and the Financial Times came up with an unusual ranking... instead than companies are ranked it was NGO's and UN agencies that got assessed by corporate leaders against certain criteria (Accountability, Adaptability, Communication, Execution).

So who are the leading NGOs/UN agencies according to Corporate Leaders? See the Top 20:


For the full ranking tables and background information see FT or Dalberg.

Ranking are always disputed and setting criteria for such an homogeneous are such as NGOs and UN agencies this is far from an easy job. Having such diverse NGOs on the same piece of papers might appear a bit random to some but nonetheless I think it's a good start for increased transparency and stimulating improvement through sharing of best practices.

BTW not a big surprise than Rotary and Lions make it to the top considering that their members are mainly business people.

The only other ranking of NGOs - although focussed on US charities - is Charity Navigator. Do you know any else?

Ten Questions on Social Entrepreneurship with David Bornstein

Social entrepreneurship is a core topic of business4good and I have blogged about it many times (scroll). This includes David Bornstein who one of the most renowned figures in the field and author of How to Change the World - Social Entrepreneurs which just came out in an updated edition.

Therefore I was happy to read on Guy Kawasaki's blog 10 questions and answers with David. He makes some interesting links between social entrepreneurship, meaningful action and to happiness (reminding me of books I am reading from the Dalai Lama). Here three little excerpts from David's answers:


1. Bill Gates' Awakening:
"When Bill Gates announced that he would be stepping down from Microsoft to run his foundation, he made it clear that he was not retiring, but rather “reordering” his priorities. Why? It was through his research trips in the developing world that he came face to face with people suffering and dying—and he couldn’t shake it. He saw that he could be more valuable to the world helping to develop AIDS or malaria vaccines, or expanding access to health care systems, than helping to create more software tools, as valuable as those tools may be. Lots of people are coming to similar conclusions. It is like a global awakening."

2. The Bottleneck Fundraising:
"Most of our major businesses are able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in capital markets—through debt or by issuing stock. But social entrepreneurs, who typically run nonprofit organizations, usually have to raise considerable grant funding from foundations, which usually comes in small, short term installments. Because the funding is so fragmented, social entrepreneurs end up spending 80% of their time fundraising, rather than spending 80% of their time focusing on running their organizations. This is a huge bottleneck."

3. Meaningful Action:
"The bottom line is that we focus on the “doing good” aspects, on the sacrifice, and ethical components, but we often forget to mention how wonderful it feels to take meaningful action in line with your core beliefs. Finally people often delay because they just don’t know where to go, what to do, or how to take the first step. So there is a big need for tools that help people find their place in the field of social entrepreneurship and social innovation. That is actually the subject of the current book I am working on."

Read the full interview.

The Other Africa: TED Conference on Ideas

What's the image of Africa in the west? If you are an optimist you might think about beautiful nature and animals but most likely many images might be negative such as poverty, famine and HIV/AIDS.

Africa has an image problem and therefore I was positively surprised to see these videos from the TED Conference on ideas which was held for the first time in Africa.

See inspiring videos which bring light to Africa showing for example how the investment climate and inflation rates have improved. It's very refreshing to see Africans themselves talking about their continent! See more at TED.



via iPienso.

Do you like Flying? If you also like the Environment then offset your Carbon Emissions

Are you a carbon balanced flyer? Probably not and I haven't known what this means until lately (not to mention how to become one ;) .

TerraPass is a prime example for a "Business4Good" and can help you to offset the carbon emissions we are responsible for through flying. This is a smart business approach to the problem that flying contributes to green house gases which I lamented on in an earlier post.

Becoming carbon neutral might be cheaper than you think. I just invested 36.95$ for an intercontinental flight from Europe to Australia. The money will go into into green energy such as from wind. You can calculate you emission here, check it out.

Just a disclaimer, no this alone won't be the solution for climate change but it's a part of it. What do you think?

Outcomes of UN Global Compact's Leaders Summit

This week the preliminary outcomes of the Global Compacts Leaders Summit from July in Geneva got released. I am thankful for it because way too much happened there for me to sum up myself :) Overall, it was very inspiring to have been there because you can see that business is taking global issues serious and the Global Compact is a facilitator in this change but as well as changing the UN itself by facilitating business-UN partnerships.

Highlights from my perspective were:

• Largest high-level event on of corporate responsibility ever: bringing together more than 1,100 leaders and representatives from business, government, civil society, labour, academia and the United Nations means this is important!
• Deepened commitment for universal principles: Through advancing responsible business practices a more sustainable and inclusive global economy can be realized. The Global Compact principles are the leading compass for this.
• Diversity of participants from 90 countries: Where else do you bring together CEOs (incl. many from China) that talk business with critical voices from nearly 200 representatives from civil society, labour and academia?
• Reports confirming that responsible business perform better: Goldman Sachs found that companies considered leaders in implementing ESG policies have outperformed the general stock market by 25 percent since August 2005. In addition, 72 percent of these companies have outperformed their peers over the same period.
• Responsible investments take off: More than 200 institutional investors representing over US $9 trillion in assets signed onto the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in just over one year.
  
• Action platforms, i.e. walking the talk: Of course such an event is a lot about dialogue but I am glad to see that there is follow through. For example through action platforms on: Climate, Water and Responsible Management Education.

As you see, a lot has happened there and is underway. You can read the complete preliminary results.