London Audience Comments
The following are a selection of comments from people who attended the debate.
Mette Kristine Oustrup, Style-Vision
"I enjoyed the debate very much, found it very thought provoking, especially the part about business and NGOs and government working together. I believe there is a lot of talk and very little action in this area. And if the three main parts - government, business and charities - start actually not only talking, but talking with each other, and doing what they are talking about doing, that will make a great impact."
Stephen Blunden, CEO, Link Community Development
"What did I make of it today? I found it interesting. I've probably got more questions than answers. I got a few ideas. I was reflecting for example on the cellphone issue because that was quite an interesting one because there was a focus on it, in that I have seen in rural districts of Uganda where over a three year period, almost every male - and it is interesting that it is every male - has a cellphone. Now there's benefits of that because it means that every school principal, every head teacher that we need to contact for workshops, we can get hold of, we can hold them accountable, they can contact each other So that saves an awful lot of time, that's efficiency, so that's positive. And there are a lot of other positives. In the country where there's not a mobile police service the fact that you can make a phone call because you're worried about something is a positive. So I think there are some big positives there. But what also surveys have shown from people like Unilever is that when you introduce mobile phones in an area, the level of money spent on food in a community goes down.
"I think the major issue that came out in terms of reflection would be that........I think NGOs already operate as businesses otherwise we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't survive, it's a tough climate. How we can we co-operate more with business and learn from them and share with them? I think we got example today of how that was happening from the pharmaceutical industry. I think the case to think more about is whether the donors, the bigger donors who we also rely, and in a sense NGOs bring donors and corporates together to work in developing countries, we're partnership makers to a certain extent, but whether the donors themselves can learn from and act more as businesses - I think that would certainly help us. But those are the areas I am going to reflect on, is how we can be more business driven."
Stella Thomas, Oxford University.
"I thought it was a brilliant debate. These kinds of debates are crucial because they bring together the public and the private sector and it stimulates a discussion at a smaller level. I think that sometimes at the UN level, at the bigger level, it is very hard to walk away with some tangible action and so forth, so I was very pleased with the debate."
Nigel Topping, TMD Friction
"I found it interesting. I felt to a certain extent we are skating around some of the more difficult issues. I man its tautological that industries involved in positive feedback looks are going to see the whole issue of development positively. So these three industries are all in positive cycles, so of course in preventing diseases, whether communicable or non-communicable, of course improving communications through the access to cheap telecommunications, and of course micro-finance are good things for development, and of course these three corporations are making money from them and make no bones about it. The really interesting question for me, which I think we've skated around, is does business have a role beyond the obvious creation of shareholder value, and do our business leaders have the courage to make more difficult decisons. To lobby governments, for example, on issues which do not give them short term benefit. So for example I don't hear anybody saying that we in business should be lobbying our governments to make sure they honour their commitments to the UN Development goals, to commit 0.7 percent of GDP to aid. I don't see anybody mentioning the massive infrastructure gap that there is in sub-Saharan Africa.
"There's a bit too much comfort in the whole cosy relationship of these kinds of business...I'm not decrying anything they're doing because they're all doing good things, and they are obviously very committed people, but what we haven't talked about are some of the industries which maybe aren't doing so much good, like the arms industry, which is very heavily supported by our governments. Or some of the things that might be counter-productive to the creation of short term shareholder value, but necessary to get the job done in terms of creating stability through the reduction of systemic poverty."
Jamal Butt, World Diabetes Foundation
"I think it is very important that business executives and senior executives actually take action in making an effort to deal with Corporate Social Responsibility and that aspect means that they have to show a good faith and a good effort to try to initiate some kind of contact with the NGOs and the governments in the developing countries. As I see it right now, there is too much focus on business from the company side of view, and very little focus on the other side of it."
Tonia Page, Page Relations
"I thought the debate was very interesting. It also came across as being very real. We talked about real issues. I think people get carried away by saying just pardoning debt to a lot of these developing countries is the easy solution. I think today there was a real realism, but also much more about working together, the NGOs and business, and also not being idealistic, knowing that there are differences in the way that a business operates to a charity to a developing country, but a real commitment to bring those elements together and to work together."
Max Weaver, Community Links
"It was a fascinating debate, but I was left wondering why it was unsatisfying to me. And I think the real thing is we were talking about two models: a market model, and a sort of altruistic, publicly funded model. It is patently true that sometimes the market model is the best one and succeeds, and sometimes it fails, and similarly with the other model. The really interesting question is what are the conditions for success, and we just touched on that rather than really exploring it, and I think that that is where the debate now needs to go."
