How can the business community boost development cooperation?
I am delighted that Accenture has expressed the intention to sign a millennium agreement. The ministry of Foreign Affairs is of course more than willing to think along with Accenture about the concrete content of the agreement. Given the many inspiring activities that Accenture and its personnel undertake, I am convinced that this cooperation will lead to great things!
Thank you for inviting me here this evening. This is a great opportunity to talk about how the business community can contribute to development cooperation. I am also very pleased to be a member of the jury which will pick the winner of the Corporate Citizen award later this evening.
First let me introduce myself. In June 2008 I was appointed the Ambassador for the Millennium Development Goals by Bert Koenders, the Minister for Development Cooperation. My main task is to link up what various players are doing to achieve the MDGs. By coordinating their efforts, I seek to create synergy. In practice, this means: we believe that achieving the MDGs is not the task of governments alone. There are many other players out there who can make a significant contribution – especially the business community! I will come back to that point later.
I believe that your invitation and my presence here today are proof that business and government have every reason to join forces on development cooperation. It is wonderful to hear about your commitment to reducing poverty in the world. In my opinion you all deserve a prize!
I am impressed by Accenture’s Corporate Citizenship activities, and the ways in which individual staff are involved. A striking example is the Accenture Development Partnership programme. You run this programme as part of your core business. This is an excellent example of what Mr Koenders calls ‘modern development cooperation.’ And that's not all. Individual members of staff have set up some especially inspiring activities. I am referring, of course, to the three nominees for the award. Your efforts are vital, because the need for action on the MDGs is more pressing now than ever before.
But first I want to say something about the MDGs themselves.
Let’s start with some points on the plus side. Between 1990 and 2008, the number of people living in extreme poverty (on less than one dollar and twenty-five cents a day) dropped from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion. If that trend continued, we would achieve MDG 1 (reducing extreme poverty by half) by 2015. But because of the present economic crisis, this now seems unlikely. Nevertheless, progress has been made in other areas: more children are going to school, we are reducing the spread of diseases like TB and malaria, and more people have access to sanitation. Since 1990, 1.6 billion people have been given access to clean drinking water.
Unfortunately, some of the goals are still a long way off. Reducing maternal and infant mortality and achieving equal rights for women and girls are the two goals where the lack of progress has been shocking. For example, in rural Mali (in west Africa) the chance of a mother dying in or after childbirth is one in 22. In Western countries, the chance is one in 7,300. Every year, about half a million women all over the world die during pregnancy or childbirth. That’s equivalent to the population of Rotterdam. In the African country of Chad, they even have a saying that a pregnant woman has one foot in the grave.
Infant mortality is decreasing, but not as fast as we had planned. In 2006, the rate dropped below ten million children a year – it’s hard to believe that this can be called ‘progress’! The mortality rate is still shockingly high. It means that every minute, three children die from the effects of AIDS, malnutrition or lack of clean drinking water.
I won’t run through all the MDGs with you. It is clear that globally, it does not look as if they will all be achieved everywhere by 2015. Certain countries or regions are making good progress but others are doing worse than expected.
And of course, we are also dealing with an economic crisis. That is why some of the progress has stagnated. It is not possible to tell what all the consequences will be for developing countries but the UN estimates that between 55 and 90 million extra people will be pushed into poverty by the crisis: a crisis whose causes lie far away from the developing countries. That is the sad fact of the matter. In such situations, the bottom billion of this world always come off worst. In 2008 I was a member of Mr Koenders’ delegation at a major UN summit in New York. The crisis was just starting but we had no idea how serious it was going to be. At that time, the bonuses paid out by Wall Street totalled 33 billion dollars. The total aid package to Africa was about 28 billion. These figures show what an enormous challenge we are facing. But they also show how cynical the world’s values can be.
We cannot close our eyes to this situation – especially now. The international community must honour its commitments. The Netherlands is one of the five countries that have kept their promise to spend 0.7% of GNP on development cooperation. We also do everything we can in international forums to remind other countries of this international agreement.
The pros and cons of the 0.7% commitment are hotly disputed, in a debate fed by the recent report by the Advisory Council on Government Policy (WRR).
I don't want to talk about the report in detail, but I would like to highlight a number of points you may find interesting. Although the Minister in his provisional reaction has indicated that he does not agree with all the report’s proposals, he is engaging in a extensive debate about the report. And let’s not forget that the report certainly makes a number of points which tie in with the core of his policy.
One of the conclusions is that development cooperation is inevitable. For Mr Koenders, this is the guiding principle for the current debate on development cooperation. ‘Inevitable’ is the right term in a world that is globalizing and becoming increasingly complex – the bottom line. In our rapidly changing world, development cooperation is not the solution to every problem. On the contrary, it is a catalyst for development. That is why Mr Koenders and the WRR both believe that there should be a greater focus on economic growth and equity in developing countries. Creating jobs is vital for economic growth and poverty reduction. Investing in the social sectors (education and health care) is an essential part of this, but it must be coordinated with prospects for economic development. It is not ‘either/or’ but ‘both/and’. That is one of the priorities of Dutch development cooperation policy. And it has a clear link with your work at Accenture.
The report poses a number of questions about the shifting motives behind development aid. It also takes a critical look at the professionalism and organisational aspects of development cooperation. In our opinion, this is relevant and constructive. It is both beneficial and necessary to keep asking ourselves why we are doing this, whether we are doing it well and whether we could do it better. In other words, just as Accenture is doing, we are also looking for ‘high performance’. These issues are relevant to the modernisation agenda adopted by Mr Koenders when he took office. In fact, modernising development cooperation is one of his top priorities.
We believe that modernisation also means actively stimulating innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors. Especially for achieving the MDGs. To quote a policy paper published in October 2007: ‘in order to achieve the MDGs, contributions are needed from thinkers, doers and providers.’
The same policy paper speaks of development and poverty reduction as ‘our common concern’. This implies a view of the Millennium Development Goals as shared aims that cannot be achieved by governments alone. Our conclusion is that, to achieve the MDGs, we need to work in partnership with the private sector, NGOs, universities and research institutes. So we are looking for a variety of partners – conventional and less conventional. We are especially interested in unusual partners – and we are looking for them in the commercial sector as well.
For the ministry, working with the private sector is no longer negotiable; it is part of the ‘acquis’ of development cooperation. We have embarked on partnerships as a means to achieving development.
The challenge now is to get more companies to understand the need for economic growth in developing countries and to convince them that it will bring opportunities.
The millennium agreements are a new and valuable tool for achieving the MDGs. They are effective, innovative joint ventures between government, business, NGOs and knowledge institutions. The government acts as a partner, and not exclusively in its traditional role as the funding source. In development through cooperation, these partnerships make aid more effective, and attract additional funding, thereby creating a leverage effect.
To give you one example: Green light for Africa. This millennium agreement between the ministry of Foreign Affairs and Philips is an interesting example of a joint investment in creative solutions and working with organisations in Africa to bring the Millennium Development Goals a step closer. Philips is interested in the African base-of pyramid market for solar lighting, in order to provide households and small businesses with light. Focusing on this target group, Philips demonstrates that the poorest people with the lowest income can be an interesting market for entrepreneurs.
With the solar lamp designed by Philips, people can continue activities (shops, but also homework) when it is dark. Philips invests their money into the design of an affordable rechargeable high quality solar lamp and also in training and distribution. The Ministry/Embassy in cooperation with local NGO partners provides support to set up a sustainable supply chain by investing in raising awareness, training small entrepreneurs and ensuring microcredit is available. So this partnership is combining the creativity and technical knowledge that Philips can provide with the experience of African organisations and expertise available at my ministry. The partnership is implemented in a pilot phase in Ghana but expected to be scaled up to 9 countries in rural Africa. Currently feasibility studies in Kenia and Tanzania are being carried out. Both the ministry and Philips invest 3 million euros each.
There are other examples I could mention, such as the Amsterdam Initiative on Malnutrition, a partnership between Akzo Nobel, DSM, Unilever, Wageningen University and the non-governmental organization Global Alliance on Improved Malnutrition (GAIN). Its aim is to provide better quality food for Africans on low incomes. It’s a great example of collaboration between market parties and government authorities.
Then we have the Sustainable Trade Initiative, a platform that brings together companies, trade unions, civil society organisations, environment groups and the government. They are working to improve the sustainability of international trade and production chains, for soybeans, timber, cocoa, cotton, fish and other commodities, by means of a ‘public equity fund’. The great thing about these examples of modern development cooperation is that companies, civil society organisations and government are following the principles of their core business. So for the private sector, this is not about charity. It's about being convinced that your company has something to offer and can make some money. After all, that's what business is about – making a profit. And why not? What we want is a win-win situation for developing countries and for the partners here in the Netherlands.
Accenture’s Corporate Citizen activities tie in nicely with this, as I said when I mentioned your Development Partnerships Programme. Therefore I am delighted that Accenture has expressed the intention to sign a millennium agreement. The ministry of Foreign Affairs is of course more than willing to think along with Accenture about the concrete content of the agreement. Given the many inspiring activities that Accenture and its personnel undertake, I am convinced that this cooperation will lead to great things!
Finally, we want to highlight our collaborative efforts and partnerships with the business community at a major UN summit in New York this September. The success of these innovative partnerships has been an important lesson for us, and also for other donor and recipient countries. But we should not only look back and take stock. More importantly, we should look ahead and plan for the next five years. A key part of that will be forging a range of diverse alliances, especially with less traditional partners such as the business community.
Let me end by quoting from an article I read in the Financial Times, by Annan, Camdessus and Rubin. The authors wrote ‘Big problems are the opportunity for big thinking’. May this be an inspiration to us all.
Thank you.