{"id":22,"date":"2005-02-03T11:01:14","date_gmt":"2005-02-03T15:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/02\/03\/will-corporations-really-help-the-"},"modified":"2005-02-03T11:01:14","modified_gmt":"2005-02-03T15:01:14","slug":"will-corporations-really-help-the-worlds-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/02\/03\/will-corporations-really-help-the-worlds-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Corporations Really Help the World&#8217;s Poor?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a28'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Press Release from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeworth.com\">Lifeworth.com<\/a>, 31st January 2005<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Review of 2004 examines corporate contributions to poverty reduction,<br \/>\nand maps out future agenda for corporate social responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;&nbsp; The shape of this new [poverty] agenda and the potential and<br \/>\ndrawbacks for both business and society is analyzed in the 4th &#x2018;Annual<br \/>\nReview of Corporate Responsibility&#x2019;, published today, by the<br \/>\nprogressive careers service Lifeworth.com. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; Leading business strategists such as CK Prahalad report that some<br \/>\ncompanies have seized opportunities by designing products and services<br \/>\nthat can be consumed by the world&#x2019;s poor. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The Review argues that business engagement with poverty and development<br \/>\nis essential but is currently poorly informed and over-hyped. Much of<br \/>\nthe profitable business with lower-income markets involves products<br \/>\nsuch as mobile phones, not the provision of basic nutrition,<br \/>\nsanitation, education and shelter, so the current expansion of<br \/>\nprofitable business in the global South does not necessarily imply<br \/>\npoverty reduction. The type of &#x2018;development&#x2019; that is promoted by<br \/>\nmarketing consumer products to the poor is also questioned. The<br \/>\nenvironmental impacts of changing consumption patterns need to be<br \/>\nlooked at, as well as the potential displacement of local companies and<br \/>\nincreasing resource drain from local economies, as larger foreign<br \/>\ncorporations become more active.<\/p>\n<p>The Review argues that future work on how corporations can aid poverty<br \/>\nreduction and development must address exploitative supply chains, tax<br \/>\navoidance, and anti-competitive practices, as these currently undermine<br \/>\ncorporations&#x2019; economic contribution to development. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);\">A good contribution to the debate about &#8220;business at the bottom of the pyramid.&#8221;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Press Release from Lifeworth.com, 31st January 2005 Review of 2004 examines corporate contributions to poverty reduction, and maps out future agenda for corporate social responsibility. &#8230;&nbsp; The shape of this new [poverty] agenda and the potential and drawbacks for both business and society is analyzed in the 4th &#x2018;Annual Review of Corporate Responsibility&#x2019;, published today, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multinational-corporate-responsibility"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}