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Fast Company's Jessica Silverman reports from the UN in Friday's FCNow blog. Ms. Silverman may represent business' point of view when it comes to issues surrounding the MDGs - that is, the MDGs are so wide-ranging and vague, they risk becoming trite. I don't know if I completely agree with her, but I struggle to defend the current UN plan as anything more than more of the same. An excerpt:

As they rattled off the eight seemingly trite goals of "The Millennium Development Goals Report," I could not help but find myself incredibly disillusioned by the grimness of their release that there has been little or no improvement in poverty-stricken nations. I walked into the room nervously expecting profound, intricate goals to breeze over my head, only to feel rather alarmed. These are the 'experts' designated to mediate world issues? More like figureheads.

Is this how business will approach development – by dismissing goals like the MDGs – or will there be a convergence towards a business approach to poverty? We’ll see.

I've recently come across several reports written by Linda Mayoux that may be of interest to readers of this blog, particularly those looking for a better understanding of how to go about establishing cross-sector partnerships aimed at pro-poor enterprise development. 

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Thanks to Jamais Cascio and his excellent World Changing weblog, I recently learned about India’s Rural Innovations Network (RIN). RIN is a non-profit organization that functions as “part business incubator, part fabrication and market research facility;” through partnerships with venture capitalists, it also matches good ideas to funding. Rather than applying developed-world technologies to BOP problems, RIN takes a “technology outward” approach. Jamais nicely summarizes for us:

[Rural] people intimately understand their environments and create thousands of innovations that have immense potential to improve the well being of the rural population. What rural innovators don't have though is access to the skills, networks and other resources needed to take their innovations to the market. [...] RIN's mission is to identify, nurture and sustain innovations by enabling the management of commercially viable enterprises, thus leading to improved economic, social and creative environments for the rural population. [...] While other organizations take technologies and products into rural areas, RIN differs in taking technologies out from rural areas. RIN champions this "technology outwards" approach because it believes innovators innovate out of local need, and in many cases the same needs exist in other rural areas.

Interestingly, this approach echoes Thomas Friedman’s postulate in today’s New York Times: “Indian companies know that if they can make money producing low-cost technology for poor Indians, it gives them an incredible platform to then take these products global. (Imagine the profit potential if they work in the West?) China is doing the exact same thing.”

The RIN is applying an emerging status-quo among BOP experts: innovate at the local level, based on local needs, then match good ideas with top-notch funding. So far, its innovations haven’t spread beyond India. If Friedman’s right (and he probably is), it’s only a matter of time.

Kurt Hoffman of the Shell Foundation wrote an interesting piece for the Guardian today that comments on one of the main conundrums facing current poverty reduction efforts: that job creation offers the best chance for poor people to escape poverty permanently, but the development community does not know how to start up and grow businesses. While cross-sector partnerships aimed at overcoming this challenge are on the rise, Hoffman points out that "In the case of big business, it's the wrong company representatives talking to the development community: instead of talking to the core value creators of companies, the development community ends up talking to experts in corporate social responsibility." His suggestion: that the development community should take advantage of the experiences of both established businesses as well as independent entrepreneurs that have already succeeded in the tough business environment present in poor countries.

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In today's New York Times, Elizabeth Becker and David Sanger report that President Bush refuses to deviate from his administration's policy not to increase aid for Africa, despite strong support for such a proposal from US allies including Great Britain.  Thus, in the run-up to the G8 summit in Scotland next month, I find myself asking, "What's the private sector's response?"  While many in the development community have latched onto the double-aid-for-Africa bandwagon, it’s looking less and less likely to happen as currently packaged.  Sorry, Jeff Sachs and Co. 

So what's the next step?  With the Bush Administration firmly in business' corner, perhaps now is a good time for the private sector to step up and talk about business opportunities in low-income markets.  I’ve heard about two events happening in Scotland around the G8 meeting.  The first will be co-organized by the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and the German Marshall Fund.  The second will be run by Business Action for Africa.  Both seem pretty interesting, and high-level.  Hopefully something real will result.

Q. How can business strategy that you describe here provide an alternative to extremist ideology and terrorism?

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My colleague and first mentor in BOP business strategies, Stuart L. Hart, is one of the world’s authorities on the implications of sustainable development for business strategy. Stu is S.C. Johnson Professor of Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, from which post he teaches, does research, and runs the Base of the Pyramid Co-Laboratory. With C.K. Prahalad, Hart wrote the pathbreaking 2002 article “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. Now Stu has taken the subject further with his new book, Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems (Wharton School Publishing, 2005). Over the next week, I've asked Stu to respond to a series of questions about the ideas in the book and their implications for companies and for business strategies that can alleviate poverty--first my questions, then I hope your questions and comments.

Q. So you really think this whole movement is going to drive itself?

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I'm struck by the seeming convergence of a number of new options for providing/generating energy in rural BOP areas. Wind-up radios and pedal-power water pumps are already succeeding commercially in Africa. Photovoltaic packages look promising for powering cell phone and other mobile device chargers, and may be a good match to power low-voltage WiFi wireless data networks and new hyper-efficient LED light sources. New work on the genomics of cellulose-digesting and ethanol-fermenting organisms may lower costs and widen markets for ethanol fuels, already a success in Brazil, creating both local substitutes for petroleum-based products, export markets, and jobs.

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