Gordon Brown speech to businesses re Millennium Development Goals, 6 May 2008

http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page15447.asp

President Kufuor, President Kagame, distinguished guests.

Today the most dynamic and far-sighted of the world’s business leaders have come together to lead the world in change.

We are agreed that the worst of injustices demand the most strenuous of our efforts.

And that the greatest of wrongs require nothing less than the united endeavours of the whole global community — business, governments, faith groups and non-governmental organisations all working as one.

And that is the reason for this historic meeting today - for business and government to join the Call to Action and for us to dedicate ourselves to work together to eliminate, in our time and in the poorest of countries, the worst of deprivation and poverty.

Our aim: to meet the world’s Millennium Development Goals.

So great is the distance we still have to travel to achieve them that they can only be met by each of us playing our part.

For we know that, without an extraordinary effort, we will fail.

Our Millennium Development Goal is to reduce infant mortality by two-thirds, but so far do we still have to go that, unless we act now, it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2030 - not, in fact, until 2050.

Our Millennium Development Goal is primary education for every child, but unless we act now it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2050, but by 2100 at best.

And unless we act now, the planet will by 2015 be suffering not less but more environmental degradation, millions of people will still be struggling on less than a dollar a day, and millions of children will still be hungry.

It is because of the scale and the scope of our ambitions — to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, disease and environmental degradation across the world — that we need all those with skills, expertise, innovation and creativity to contribute.

And let me thank for their attendance this morning two Presidents who are changing Africa for the better…
Presidents Kagame and Kufuor - men I congratulate as leaders of a new wave of successful, reforming African countries.

And I am pleased at this conference organised with the United Nations - and in the presence of Dr Kerim and Kemal Dervis - to be joined by so many distinguished business leaders from corporations across the world, some of whom I thank for traveling thousands of miles to be here today.

Next month, European leaders will meet in Brussels to agree an E.U. plan on education, health and infrastructure; in July, the G8 will decide new measures on health workers, malaria and food prices;
and in September governments, businesses, NGOs and faith groups will come together at a special UN summit to agree what more we need to do to accelerate action.

But, as I said at the United Nations in July, business has a bigger role than ever to play in helping to achieve our goals.

And as I said then, “for too long we have talked the language of development without defining its starting point in wealth creation - the dignity of individuals empowered to trade and to be economically self-sufficient”.

There is no need, to this audience, to emphasise the role of global business in driving economic growth.

And it is growth and prosperity, not aid, that is our objective.

While aid is an essential means, the purpose of aid is to no longer require it.

And my argument today is that not only do you as businesses have the technology, the skills and the expertise that, if fully mobilised for global purpose, will generate wealth and jobs throughout the developing world.

It is also in your best interests as businesses to bring the poorest countries into the global economy and to create a globalisation that is inclusive for all.

So I’m not talking just about a moral imperative but about a strategic and an economic one as well. Ours is already a world where the actions of the poorest citizen in the poorest country can have an impact on the richest citizen in the richest country - and where whole countries and even a whole continent left behind are a source of instability right around the globe.

That is why today’s event is so important.

Some argue that it is the presence of big international corporations that is the cause of the problems in developing countries, but I disagree. Indeed, I believe it is the absence of business - and not the presence of business - that blights the lives of poor people, leaving them dependent on aid and denying them the opportunity to work, denying them the chance to support their families and denying them the means to ensure their children get the chance to succeed.

Economic growth alone has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty over the last 25 years, accounting for over 80 per cent of poverty reduction.

And the countries whose economies are growing fastest, like Rwanda and Ghana represented here today, are those that are making progress on the Millennium Development Goals - with countries whose economies are growing more slowly falling behind.

So we need to fully acknowledge the critical importance of the private sector in driving development - focusing our attention not on an old one-dimensional welfarist approach but on enterprise, on free and fair trade and open markets, and on harnessing the power of innovation — the building blocks of growth.

Developing countries - including Ghana and Rwanda - are already working hard to put in place the macroeconomic stability, supportive regulatory environment and measures to tackle corruption that are necessary for business and trade to thrive.

And rich countries must also play their part - delivering on the solemn promises they made at Gleneagles on aid and debt and agreeing a new W.T.O. trade deal over the coming weeks.

But all of you here in this room today - and many more businesses around the world - have a vital role to play as well — using your innovation, your specialist skills and your technology to deliver solutions that governments alone cannot.

Too often in the past, business involvement in reducing poverty in developing countries has focused on philanthropy in its old Fordist guise.

Today we need a new approach — moving beyond minimum standards, beyond philanthropy and beyond traditional corporate social responsibility - important though they are - to develop long-term business initiatives that mobilise the resources and talents that are the central strengths of global business.

And I am pleased that this morning more than a dozen global companies are announcing trailblazing projects that showcase this approach.

From delivering financial services via mobile phones so that millions of people have access to basic bank accounts for the first time; to providing rural farmers with electronic price and weather information so they can decide when best to harvest and sell their crops; to sourcing ingredients from local supply chains to develop the base of the local economy — each one of these initiatives is providing innovative solutions to the problems we face and spreading enterprise and opportunity across the developing world.

And if we can achieve so much with only the first handful of companies, just think how much we can achieve as more businesses join the campaign.

So today we are urging even more of you to join us in our 2008 call to action and to develop specific initiatives in line with this new approach:

• bringing your specialist skills to bear on solving problems on the ground — whether that be a shortage of skills or a lack of information;
• trying out new innovations that can be scaled up over time and replicated throughout the developing world;
• and using your core business models in new and creative ways that transform both economies and people’s lives.

And we need to build momentum throughout this important year in the run-up to the historic United Nations summit in September, summoning everyone who is concerned about this poverty emergency to take urgent action to meet our goals — and I urge all of the companies here today to develop an initiative in time for that meeting in the autumn.

So to every private sector company in the world, in Britain and here in the City of London my message today is: join us. You can make a difference.

Already, because of both public and private sector action since 2000, 41 million more children are in school, 3 million more children are surviving to their fifth birthday each year, and 2 million more people are receiving treatment for aids.

Already, we have seen what a difference private sector engagement and innovation can make — we know, for example, that the growth rate in developing countries increases by 0.6 per cent for every 10 extra mobile phones per 100 people.

Already, through initiatives like the international financial facility for immunisation, we have shown the impact of a genuine public-private partnership - long term commitments from donor countries leveraged on the financial markets to save, by 2010, 5 million lives.

And already, we know that if we can work together to forge a new and far-sighted coalition for change we can ensure that the benefits of globalisation flow not just to the few and fortunate but to every part of our global society.

And when conscience is joined to conscience, moral force to moral force… think how much our power to do good and our power to change lives can achieve.

Education for every child;
The eradication of avoidable diseases;
Millions moving from poverty to prosperity;
Governments and business coming together to make globalisation a force for justice on a truly global scale.

Together, that is our aim.
Together, that is our challenge.
And together, in this generation, that is what we can achieve.