Business Call to Action launched, coaliton of businesses, IBLF, UNDP and GC aiming for MDGs
Summary
Business Call to Action aims to accelerate progress towards the MDGs by encouraging companies to adapt their business models and core business expertise to help improve the lives of people through innovation, investment and the creation of decent jobs while realizing commercial success.
A dozen international companies announced concrete initiatives to apply business expertise to tackle poverty at an event hosted in London on May 6 2008 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the British Government.
The Business Call to Action International Partnership involves the UK Government, AusAid, UNDP, Clinton Global Initiative, the International Business Leaders Forum and the UN Global Compact.
New business initiatives announced by Diageo, Vodaphone, Coca Cola, Sumitomo Chemical, Microsoft, SABMiller, Thomson Reuters, Citi and Cisco are expected to create thousands of jobs and potentially improve the lives of millions of poor people across Africa and Asia.
They are part of a concerted push to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were endorsed by 189 world leaders in 2000 and represent a global partnership to promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health and gender equality and to combat child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.
The Business Call to Action aims to enable poor people to access speedy flows of information, money and business expertise, as well as creating new employment opportunities.
“In the race to achieve the MDGs, one of the greatest untapped resources is the private sector,” UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis said. “Innovative business leaders, both in the North and the South, are changing the way that many businesses operate. They are expanding beyond traditional business practices, to also focus on the needs of those locked out of the global market, bringing them in as partners in growth and wealth creation.