What will be the impact of the economic downturn on corporate interest in world poverty?

[Business Fights Poverty]

In recent years, there has been a growing interest within the business community in the Millennium Development Goals and the contribution that business can make towards ending poverty in developing countries.

What, if any, will be the impact of the economic downturn on business' capacity and desire to support international development? Are we likely to see any shifts in the level and pattern of corporates' support?

[Sooraj Kumar R]

Well, there could be 2 effects... one of which is the most probable one, and that's 'no support for the time being'

the 2nd is that businesses can concentrate on 'the bottom of the pyramid'... but that calls for product/business innovation and recession locks up your resources real bad and such innovations become difficult... until the Fed bails out the entire US economy by infusing a good $100 (average per citizen number) into the system to bring it back to life, there's no solution that we'll see for another year, at least...

[Michael Blondino]

Great question. This hit us right at one of the most important points of increasing the scale of our field work. Our local markets in Africa are not impacted dramatically by the global economic downturn. Donations and philanthropic investment has been down, but oddly, relationship has been up. So rather than resting our hopes on field advancement, we using this time expand the footprint of our networks - our organizational reach. If the question is "interest in world poverty" I believe that poverty is easier to identify with when we face global problems. Funds may be less available, but alliances seem to be a little easier to make. I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say about this.

[Ida Horner]

Interesting question indeed! certainly people are less likely to be as generous as they would ordinarily. Something that has struck me however is the likes of Rio Tinto, scaling back/cutting down their operations worldwide. The main concern here is that although they extract resources out of developing countires for (one could argue ) the benefit of the developed world they create jobs in these countries. I understand that the biggest consumer of these resources China, has stopped spending in a big way thereby reducing the demand for these resources. Whilst on the one hand this means that resources such as precious metals do not live African countries by the bucket loads, on the other hand if this is a big source of income for an African government or a source of jobs for a given country clearly the ordinary man on teh street is bound to feel a real pinch as result.

I have spent months in conversation with our producers here at Ethnic Supplies regarding production costs etc. Whilst teh cost of raw materials has gone up consumers are not prepared to pay that much more for their products. We have therefore had to adapt and become creative/proactive in the ways we work both here and on the ground in Africa