NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Creating a World Development Corporation - Comments

World Development Corporation

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:26:26 -0500

What about this World Development Corporation? Excellent idea in theory (but probably too big as commented on, and it isn't made clear to me how local entrepreneurs go about it really). Has it been established by now and is it running yet?

Part II of Lodge piece posted

John Paul — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:21:45 -0500

Part II of Lodge & Wilson's paper - Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction - has been posted and can be found at: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6672

Top-Down Plus Bottoms-Up

_microfranchise — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 11:30:25 -0500

Development professionals currently bemoan the "missing middle," the potentially high-growth SME layer that sits in between large MNC projects and micro-enterprises. If my thesis is correct, the MicroFranchise business model can energize this missing middle, and MicroFranchising is an appropriate way for MNCs to engage the BOP. See "MicroFranchises as a Solution to Global Poverty." www.omidyar.net/group/poverty/file/7.35.11055472357/ Suppose we were to combine a World Development Corporation top-down MNC-led approach with a bottoms-up SME-centric MicroFranchising approach. The results could be world-changing. Professor George Lodge and I are currently discussing this possibility. Kirk Magleby

Creating a World Development Corporation

_Graham Douglas — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:38:11 -0500

While agreeing with the need for MNCs to do more I doubt whether a single World Development CORPORATION would be efficacious for the same reason that top-down organisations of any sort are unlikely to be the most efficacious way to go in these days of rapid communications. I believe we could obtain the advantages sought by Lodge and Wilson without the disadvantages by following a bottom-up Integrative Improvement™ approach. This would involve the building of a number of Integrative Federations that integrate the undoubted skills of MNCs and the essential formulation, expression and communication of demand from end-users in local areas. For a brief outline of the Integrative Improvement™ approach please see http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eprints/get/papers/0503/0503006.abs and my website. A more detailed paper explaining how this approach can benefit poor communities and MNCs and improve governance in business, government and civil society organisations is available on request. Graham Douglas Integrative Federation™ www.integrative-thinking.com

world development corporation

anonymous commentator — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:41:18 -0500

great idea: set up yet another expensive and bureaucratic international organization that will end poverty and bring world peace and happyness. How naive can one be ?

Creating a World Development Corporation

John Paul — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:56:32 -0500