Fighting poverty: a business opportunity (Report of the 10th International Business Forum)

This report presents highlights and findings from the Tenth International Business Leaders Forum, the purpose of which was to facilitate an exchange within the business community on actions that can promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Points raise at the Forum include:

• one of the conditions that is needed to accelerate progress toward achieving the MDGs is a better flow of information between players and stakeholders involved - business, governments, agencies, civil society, public and media
• the lack of finance is seen as a major bottleneck for entrepreneurs in developing countries, and therefore, the financial sector should fulfil its intermediation role and provide funds for private investment as public donor funding is not sufficient to achieve the MDGs
• while companies in a specific sector are competitors, they recognise that they face many of the same problems as well as opportunities, and therefore, there is potential for industry level collective action and initiatives that can support development objectives.

The report concludes that scaling up development aid, private funding and business activities to achieve the MDGs will not work without scaling up formation and coordination efforts.