• Financing the MDGs

Financing the MDGs

Business Solutions for Human Development Report 2007 assesses the current and potential scope of business engagement for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Egypt. The report is based on an extensive review of literature and quantitative and qualitative studies of a representative sample of multinational, large national, small and medium-sized companies operating in Egypt.

The report demonstrates through case studies how companies can maximise their potential to contribute to the MDGs through:

• corporate or family foundations geared towards development, rather than unfocused charitable activities
• core business and value chain activities
• social entrepreneurship and ‘base of the pyramid’ models; and
• more traditional philanthropic activities

In spite of the growing practice of philanthropy and corporate social responsibility in Egypt, the report concludes, that the private sector’s efforts are still scattered and fragmented and that investment in partnerships for development is limited.

The report calls for a new ‘recipe’ to enable business solutions for human development. As part of this approach, it recommends that:

• civil society organisations must widen their networks of partners to include business and spread awareness about the MDGs and the needs of local communities.
• the government needs to create the climate for social change, good governance and set in motion incentives for stakeholder engagement
• the private sector needs to go back to the drawing board and re-think the way it does business in order to design production processes and service delivery models that spread prosperity up and down the value chain
• private sector needs to have new leadership – one that envisages the harnessing of its resources, technologies, innovations, and problem-solving skills to achieve the MDGs

The new approach seeks to measure the private sector’s ‘development footprint’ in the same way climate change calls for the measurement of companies’ ‘carbon footprint’. The ‘development footprint’ would record improved well-being and sustainable livelihoods, guiding other businesses in the redesign of their core activities.

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