Library

• Summary of the DriVen Partnership
• Summary of the Click Shastho Project 
• Summary of BYLC - Catalyzing Change Through Leadership Training
• Summary of Bangladesh Institute of Job Opportunities for the Youth
• Policy Seminar on Promoting Social Enterprise Development in Bangladesh: Sharing of Bangladesh Social Enterprise Project (BSEP) Outcomes
• Working Paper: A Positive Theory of Entrepreneurship, by F. Santos, 2009.
• Social Enterprise Development: Literature Review and Case Studies
• Social Enterprise Development: Bangladesh Case Studies

• Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility by Daniel Litvin, published by Texere (London and New York)  in 2003, gives cautionary tales from four centuries of attempts by Western companies to operate effectively abroad. Case studies include: Nike's attempts to practise corporate social responsibility in its factories in Asia; Shell's problems handling protests and attacks in Nigeria; and Rupert Murdoch's efforts to adapt to local politics and culture in China and India.

• Inevitable Surprises by Peter Schwartz, published in London by Free Press in 2003, outlines the political, social, economic and environmental changes that your company should be preparing for. Schwartz is the former head of Shell's famous scenario planning team and brings out the business implications of current trends.

• Enterprise Solutions to Global Poverty by the Shell Foundation discusses the misunderstandings that donors have of business.

• The World Bank's Voices of the Poor report emphasised that poor people worry about much more than economic indicators.

• UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2001 discusses the benefits of backward linkages from multinational corporations to local suppliers.

• Dr Marcel Fafchamps of Oxford University Economics Department gives a brilliant overview of the causes of economic growth in "Engines for Growth".

• "A Richer Future for India" from the McKinsey Quarterly discusses the positive impact of outsourcing.

• "'Localization: The Revolution in Consumer Markets", by Darrell Rigby and Vijay Vishwanath discusses the benefits of a local approach. 

• The UNDP's Commission on the Private Sector and Development published a report, Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor, in March 2004 that outlines why the private sector is important to development and what role multinational companies can play. As of March 2006, it was available for free download at the Commission's website (www.undp.org/cpsd).

• The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes (published in hardback in New York by Little, Brown & Company in 1998 and in paperback in London by Abacus in 1999) and Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (revised edition published in New York by W.W. Norton in 2005), both examine the fundamentals of why some societies are richer than others. Landes focuses on the cultural and political conditions that support technological advance, while Diamond looks at how innovations spread. Both are masterpieces.

• Marcel Fafchamps, 'Engines of Growth and Africa's Economic Performance' argues that technological change is essential for sustainable economic growth.

• "The Poor like Globalization" by David Dollar reports survey findings on attitudes towards globalisation in the developed and developing world.

• Professor Stefan Dercon's, "Poverty Traps and Development: The Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off Revisited" discusses the circumstances in which growth does or does not help the poor.

•  'Lack of Investment is the Tragedy in Africa' by Kurt Hoffman, Director of the Shell Foundation, discusses the weakness of aid flows compared to the potential of investment flows to developing countries.

• Tarun Khanna, Krishna Palepu and Jayant Sinha, 'Strategies that Fit Emerging Markets', discusses the dangers of transporting business models from developed to developing countries.

•  Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen, published by Oxford University Press in 1999, is the fundamental text we draw on in this chapter. It's packed full of material, not all of which will be relevant to business readers, but it's the essential text if you're really interested in this aspect of poverty.

• Dissent on Development by Peter Bauer was published in the 1970s (initially by Weidenfield and Nicolson in 1971, followed by a revised edition in 1972 by Harvard University Press), but remains a fundamental text if you treasure personal initiative and the private sector, and are suspicious of government intervention and large aid programmes. It's not an easy read, but is useful ammunition if your development friends try to assume the moral high ground.

• Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers are available from the World Bank and imf. They are available for free download from the IMF website (www.imf.org/external/np/prsp/prsp.asp). They are a valuable source of economic data and are key for anyone attempting to make themselves relevant to a country's development plans.

• The Penn World Table gives a host of economic data, including Purchasing Power Parity figures, for every country. It is available at no cost and with an easy-to-use interface at http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu

• 'Strategies that Fit Emerging Markets' by Tarun Khanna, Krishna Palepu and Jayant Sinha, in the June 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review provides an excellent account of how companies need to understand and adapt to 'institutional voids' in developing counties either by changing their business model or by helping the country to fill the gap. It is written purely from a strategy perspective rather than a poverty alleviation point of view, but reaches similar conclusions to ours. You can pay to download a copy of the article from http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu

• The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto (published by hardback in the USA by Basic Books in 2000 and in paperback in the UK by Black Swan in 2001) is a magnificent exploration of how one poverty trap-the inability of the poor to prove collateral and gain credit-can constrain development.

• Opportunity International and Grameen Bank are fine examples of microfinance organisations that welcome links to multinational corporations.

• The Enterprise Centre in Baku is a good example of multinational companies overcoming inefficiency traps and increasing local sourcing.  INSEAD Innovasia works to connect multinational companies with Asian entrepreneurs.

• UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2001 discusses the value of establishing better backward linkages with local companies.

• "Poverty Traps and Development" by Professor Stefan Dercon of Oxford University gives an excellent technical account of the role that poverty traps play in constraining pro-poor growth.

• "Lack of Investment is the Problem in Africa" describes The Shell Foundation's attempts to help poor people overcome poverty traps and gain access to credit.

• The Business of Peace by Jane Nelson, published in London by International Alert, the Council on Economic Priorities and The Prince of Wales' Business Leaders Forum in 2000 gives an excellent systematic account of the positive and negative ways in which companies can affect security, broken down by the type of business operation and the type of conflict you find yourself in. It includes several case histories. It is difficult to find but as, of March 2006, was available from Amazon with a few weeks' delay.

• Joining Forces: From National Security to Networked Security by Rachel Briggs, published by the London-based think-tank Demos in 2005, looks mostly at security in the uk, but makes some useful general points about the need for government to co-operate with business in providing security. The book is available for free download at www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/joiningforcesbook/  where you can also purchase a hard copy. 

• The book is part of a long-term project to examine the business case for working on security and to outline business's role in security sector reform. Further reports from the project are expected to be published throughout 2006/07 and will be available at www.demos.co.uk .

• The Peace Dividend Trust does interesting work to increase the level of backward linkages between UN peacekeeping operations and the local economy, with the aim of contributing to local development and stability. Their website includes a useful paper which contains many recommendations that could also be adopted by businesses operating in post-conflict countries.

• "Fighting Poverty to Build a Safer World" by DFID gives the classic development donor view of the links between insecurity and poverty.  

• International Alert have published two excellent reports on the role of business in supporting peace.  "The Business of Peace" gives case histories of Northern Ireland and South Africa that we mention in "Make Poverty History" and the more recent and comprehensive "Local Business Local Peace" gives numerous case studies of the role of the local private sector in a wide range of countries.  For a detailed study of the links between economics and peace in a single conflict, see International Alert's "Economics and Conflict in Mindanao". 

•  "Voices of the Poor" from The World Bank emphasises the importance of security to the poor.                    

• "Keeping Your People Safe" by Rachel Briggs of the Foreign Policy Centre discusses the responsibilities that multinational corporations have for protecting their staff overseas. 

• BP in Azerbaijan emphasise the importance of cooperating with local communities to deliver mutual security.                                                                                                                       

• The World Bank provide a resource of links and papers on the role of the private sector in conflict.  

•  Professor Paul Collier's paper "Doing Well out of War" provides a useful corrective to the naive view that the private sector will automatically contribute to peace, and discusses how the wrong sort of economic opportunity and business practices can sometimes cause conflict.

•  The Business Partners for Development (BPD) project developed concrete advice for managing different types of partnership between business, Government and NGOs. It has several good examples of productive partnerships, particularly in the water and extractive industries. 

• The Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders' Forum (IBLF) (www.iblf.org ) offers advice and support to companies that want to do more in their local community, and will often facilitate collective action by companies and ngos.

• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD) (www.wbcsd.org ) is a consortium of businesses interested in development and environmental issues. It also supports a network of national-level Business Councils for Sustainable Development. 

•  INSEAD business school have an excellent case study of the partnership between Telenor and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh to form GrameenPhone.  Danone Grameen is a good example of combining a multinational's core skills with a microfinance organisation's delivery mechanisms and local networks.

• In Make Poverty Business we discuss the surprising lack of support from the UN for multinational corporations who wish to contribute to poverty alleviation, and we analyse the underlying political reasons. Craig Wilson's other book, "A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty" explores this in more detail.  The UN Global Compact is a rare example of cooperation between multinational corporations and UN bodies, but tends to be about what companies will not do rather than containing any positive view of what they will do.  Another small-scale initiative is the UNDP's Commission on the Private Sector and Development

• Cemex, the Mexican cement company, has thrived by innovating around how poor customers learn about, purchase and finance their products.

• The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, published by Harvard Business School Press in Boston in 1997, is a classic account of how companies miss opportunities at the bottom of a market. The Innovator's Solution by Christensen and Michael Raynor (published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003) rehashes some of the material but also proposes some rigorous ways to analyse new opportunities and overcome the dilemma.

• 'Value Innovation: the Strategic Value of High Growth' by Renée Mauborgne and Chan Kim in Harvard Business Review (January/February 1997) talks brilliantly about reinventing the combination of value and cost for consumers. It is available as a paid download at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu . Their book, Blue Ocean Strategy , published by Harvard Business School Press in 2005, expands the idea.

• From Global to Metanational by Yves Doz, Jose Santos and Peter Williamson, published by Harvard Business School Press in 2001, discusses how companies can replace a 'top-down' model of international management with a network of outposts which all learn from each other.

• Open Innovation by Henry Chesbrough, published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003, discusses the difficulty for companies of matching the level of experimentation in the market and recommends ways of capturing external innovation.

• Global Champions from Emerging Markets by Jayant Sinha of McKinsey gives examples of companies that are developing  robust, low-cost innovations in developing markets and transferring them back to developed countries.

• 'The Right Way to Manage Expats' by J. Stewart Black and Hal. B. Gregersen, in Harvard Business Review (March-April 1999) gives an excellent account of the expatriate management cycle. It is available for paid download at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu.

• 'Strategies That Fit Emerging Markets' by Tarun Khanna, Krishna Palepu and Jayant Sinha in the June 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review discusses the need to adapt business models to local markets or to support the development of local infrastructure to fill the gaps. It is available for paid download at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu

• Global Champions from Emerging Markets by Jayant Sinha of McKinsey discusses the lessons on multinational operations that can be learnt from companies like HSBC.

• For a good example of cooperating with civil society to understand, communicate and improve your impact on poverty, have a look at the Oxfam report on Unilever's operations in Indonesia.

• The Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects looks into legal and organisational aspects of major global infrastructure projects and has examined legal and political risk of long-term contracts with Governments.

• Professor David Henderson's paper " Misguided Virtue ", published by the Institute for Economic Affairs , makes the basic case for using profits to measure social contribution.

• Winners Never Cheat by Jon Huntsman , published by Wharton School Publishing ( Pennsylvania ) in 2005, gives a hard-headed and personal view of the importance of ethics and the strategic value of playing it straight

• The Prince of Wales' International Business Leaders' Forum (IBLF) sponsors a range of initiatives on corporate governance and economic development and will assist groups of companies to form coalitions to oppose corruption. Its website ( www.iblf.org ) offers a range of resources including case histories and sources of additional assistance.

• Transparency International is the most prominent campaigner against corruption. Its website ( www.transparency.org ) offers a range of resources for free download, including Business Principles for Countering Bribery. These are being used as the basis for anti-corruption criteria in the ethical investment index, FTSE4Good.