From Crisis to Opportunity: Harnessing the Power of Business to sustain progress towards the MDGs

[Business Action for Africa]

The global economic and financial crisis has the potential to undermine the recent economic and social progress made across sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, it presents an opportunity to stimulate new thinking on how to generate innovative and more sustainable ways to support the region’s growth and development.

In the last report from Business Action for Africa, "MDGs at the midpoint", focused on the private sector’s role in accelerating Africa’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals – the internationally-agreed goals to cut poverty by 2015. This publication is an urgent update of that story for what is a transformed context.

In our latest publication, "From Crisis to Opportunity: Harnessing the Power of Business to sustain progress towards the MDGs", we have invited a wide range of leading thinkers from business, government and the NGO community – both international and from Africa – to share their views on how to ensure the private sector continues to act as the engine room of growth and development, and the type of policies required to help businesses to manage and innovate through the crisis.

Our contributors provide a wealth of insights that will be of value to both policy makers and practitioners. How is the global economic downturn impacting Africa’s development and how can we mitigate the worst effects? What are the policy responses required from the G8 and other stakeholders to sustain and stimulate private investment, trade, innovation and enterprise? Where are the opportunities for growth and how do we continue to innovate to release the region’s potential? How can business best contribute to maintaining momentum towards the MDGs and how can we improve the quality of collective action?

We would like to thank all of the contributors, and encourage others to engage in the online discussion that accompanies this report (www.africa.businessfightspoverty.org). The complexity of the challenges and scale of the opportunities only serve to strengthen the need to harness our collective wisdom and energy.