I'd like to draw attention to two points made very strongly by Kurt Hoffman in his intro to the Shell report. See at http://www.shellfoundation.org/articles_speeches/ending_poverty.html One point is the importance of jobs in alleviating poverty, a conclusion underscored by the recent report of the Commission on Africa. But jobs are created by enterprise, especially small enterprise. And as Hoffman says, that "suggests there is much more to beating poverty than aid spending alone." The second point is that the aid agencies often do not know how to leverage the skills of the private sector. "When business, especially big business, is approached to become a partner in tackling poverty, the international development community doesn’t know how to extract the highest value from business participation. Instead, it basically asks for money or requests the presence of star CEOs at high profile but usually ineffective talking shops." Instead, for example, of creating a better enabling climate for enterprise, or lowering the risk of business investment, or making start-up funding available. Shell has injected some fresh thinking into this area that is worth careful consideration by NGOs and development agencies alike. Al Hammond