philanthropyOz Blog

Business for Poverty Relief

Business for Poverty Relief Alliance is a forum for Australian business to confront global poverty and its causes. The group of companies involved in the alliance was facilitated by World Vision, and included ANZ, Visy Industries, Grey Global Group, IAG and Pfizer. The Alliance commissioned the Allen Consulting Group to produce a report, Business for Poverty Relief: a business case for business action, which is downloadable in PDF format here.

The report concludes that there is a strong business case for Australian companies to do more to focus on, and do more to address, the plight of the poor in developing nations. It asks how and why business should be involved in poverty relief, and also presents success stories where corporate initiatives have been taken in developing markets to respond to the evident needs around them.

The report provides a strong business case for immediate Australian investment in the eight UN Millennium Development Goals, which form the basis of a blueprint signed in September 2000 by 191 world leaders including Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. The goals form part of a global plan to eradicate poverty by 2015; they provide measurable and achievable targets to address extreme poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. The Millennium Development Goals, in summary, are:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal mortality
• Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• More information is available on the Business for Poverty Relief Alliance website.