Antony Burgmans of Unilever gives an excellent speech on the role of private investment, businesses and governments towards meeting the MDGs. His beef: broad taxes ( a la French air passenger tax to alleviate African poverty) with little impact. His hopes: the current WTO Doha round will focus on BOP-oriented strategies.

"Let me make some remarks on the role of both business and government in this respect. I am convinced that both have a major role to play, both in their own right and through public-private partnerships, also including civil society such as Non- Governmental Organizations (NGO’s)."

"I’ll give you some examples from my own experience. Unilever – the company for which I have been working throughout my life – operates in most parts of the world, including Africa, where we employ some 50.000 people and as such are one of the largest employers on the continent. Unilever – with a long historic presence – has always attached great importance to further development of living standards in Africa, both from a business and humanitarian perspective, and has started activities in areas such as training and scholarships, partnership with UNICEF on fortified food, HIV/AIDS progammes and working with smallholders in tea to promote sustainable tea."

Read his entire speech here.