business.un.org, Partnering for a better world

The Commission on the Private Sector & Development, co-chaired by Canada’s 21st Prime Minister, Paul Martin, and Mexico’s former president Ernesto Zedillo, was convened by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July 2003 in an effort to identify and address the legal, financial and structural obstacles blocking the expansion of the indigenous private sector in developing nations – especially in the poorest regions and communities in those countries. The Commission focuses on how business can create domestic employment and wealth, free local entrepreneurial energies, and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In July 2003, when the Secretary-General first announced the establishment of the Commission on the Private Sector & Development, he pointedly noted: “Our experience has shown that a large part of the work for development is about preparing the ground for sufficient private sector activity to provide the jobs and income needed to build a more equitable and prosperous society. Yet the UN has only sporadically tapped the power that can be drawn from engaging the private sector in the work of development.” The Secretary-General challenged Co-Chairmen Martin and Zedillo at the outset to answer two basic questions: “How can the potential of the private sector and entrepreneurship be unleashed in developing countries? And how can the existing private sector be engaged in meeting that challenge?” The Commission responded to these questions in Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor — a report presented on March 1, 2004 to the Secretary-General. This report not only suggests policy reforms and other initiatives that can spur entrepreneurial ventures to serve and employ the poor in developing countries; it underscores that such enterprises are critical to the eradication of poverty in the developing world. The report’s strength lies not in primary research – for considerable expertise already exists in private sector development – but in having built an unprecedented consensus amongst international organizations, governments of developing and developed countries, the worldwide development community, academics, as well as key private sector leaders.

Further information

• http://www.undp.org/cpsd/report/index.html