Global poverty – what corporations can do - CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa -
CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa » Global poverty – what corporations can do
Global poverty – what corporations can do
I read recently an interesting Q&A with Jeffrey Sachs, author of “The end of Poverty” and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York. Among other things, he stresses the importance of businesses subscribing to CSR and social entrepreneurs and how new technologies and management strategies can help to raise wellbeing and productivity in poor regions.

According to the EU’s Lisbon Agenda, micro-enterprises with 10 employees or less constitute the strongest motor for job growth in the world. I think that supporting micro-enterprises and local entrepreneurs is one of the most effective ways of helping the unemployed or underemployed. HP has several programs in place to address the problem of poverty from different angles.

First we launched the project “Piloting solution for reversing brain drain into brain gain for Africa” together with UNESCO at the end of last year. Over the past decade, African countries have suffered from emigration of up to 70 percent of skilled professionals, devastating scientific research and higher education capacities at many universities. With this project we want to enable universities to gain access to international research networks, enter into international partnerships and identify funding opportunities. This will provide incentives for young scientists to stay in their home countries and will thereby enable them to help their countries to grow.

Second, we directly support micro-enterprises through the Micro-enterprise Acceleration Program (MAP) which aims at developing technology-rich, student-centered learning environments specifically tailored for entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses. In June 2006 we transferred MAP to the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I), an NGO that is developing the programme further in partnership with us.

And just this month, we launched or latest initiative to tackle youth unemployment in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – the Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) program. We conduct this program together with our partner MEA-I and local non-profit organisations that will provide training to unemployed youth and graduates that are in need of professional IT and business skills. The goal of the program is to train 6,000 young people in 18 countries over the course of the first year to enable them to start their own business or find jobs and to eventually boost the economic development in the regions where the trainings are offered.

I think that there are many ways how corporations can help fighting global poverty. Each corporation has to use its core competencies and be aware of how it can best contribute to solving the issue. But it is important that we address the problem at the root where it emerges. My conclusion is that partnerships are a key success factor. You cannot save the world alone. I enjoy teaming up with others, like UNESCO and MEA-I, and it is fantastic to see what you can achieve together. I am looking forward to hearing how you approach the problem of global poverty and how you think a powerful partnership should look like.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA
Posted 05-21-2007 7:56 AM by BlogArchive
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