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December 21, 2006
Santiago Iñiguez, Dean and Professor of Strategy
Referring to the text about TED Global, November 30, I should mention a presentation made by professor Hans Rosling, that concerns Africa and its growth, that was made at TED and more recently in Paris at LeWeb3.
Here is the link to his presentation
"Hans Rosling is professor of international health at Sweden's world-renowned Karolinska Institute, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that brings vital global data to life. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, he debunks a few myths about the "developing" world. (Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA.)"
Technorati Tags:leweb3 Rosling TED
December 13, 2006
Harvard Business Review has just published on their December issue two great articles together with an editorial and material which relates to Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility and to Disruptive Innovation for Social Change. The first is authored by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer and the former by Clayton M. Christensen and others.
I sincerley recommend purchasing these articles or moreover, December's issue of HBR; both CSR and social innovation are very well envisioned, together with an editorial and Michael Porter's Mapping Social Opportunities, which helps you visualize how an organization can set a successful CSR agenda which maximizes social benefit while making business sense.
Here's an abstract of Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility:
Governments, activists, and the media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their actions. In response, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as an inescapable priority for business leaders in every country. Frequently, though, CSR efforts are counterproductive, for two reasons. First, they pit business against society, when in reality the two are interdependent. Second, they pressure companies to think of corporate social responsibility in generic ways instead of in the way most appropriate to their individual strategies. The fact is, the prevailing approaches to CSR are so disconnected from strategy as to obscure many great opportunities for companies to benefit society. What a terrible waste. If corporations were to analyze their opportunities for social responsibility using the same frameworks that guide their core business choices, they would discover, as Whole Foods Market, Toyota, and Volvo have done, that CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed—it can be a potent source of innovation and competitive advantage. In this article, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer propose a fundamentally new way to look at the relationship between business and society that does not treat corporate growth and social welfare as a zero-sum game. They introduce a framework that individual companies can use to identify the social consequences of their actions; to discover opportunities to benefit society and themselves by strengthening the competitive context in which they operate; to determine which CSR initiatives they should address; and to find the most effective ways of doing so. Perceiving social responsibility as an opportunity rather than as damage control or a PR campaign requires dramatically different thinking—a mind-set, the authors warn, that will become increasingly important to competitive success.
Purchase this article.
Here's an abstract of Disruptive Innovation for Social Change:
Countries, organizations, and individuals around the globe spend aggressively to solve social problems, but these efforts often fail to deliver. Misdirected investment is the primary reason for that failure. Most of the money earmarked for social initiatives goes to organizations that are structured to support specific groups of recipients, often with sophisticated solutions. Such organizations rarely reach the broader populations that could be served by simpler alternatives. There is, however, an effective way to get to those underserved populations. The authors call it "catalytic innovation." Based on Clayton Christensen's disruptive-innovation model, catalytic innovations challenge organizational incumbents by offering simpler, good-enough solutions aimed at underserved groups. Unlike disruptive innovations, though, catalytic innovations are focused on creating social change. Catalytic innovators are defined by five distinct qualities. First, they create social change through scaling and replication. Second, they meet a need that is either overserved (that is, the existing solution is more complex than necessary for many people) or not served at all. Third, the products and services they offer are simpler and cheaper than alternatives, but recipients view them as good enough. Fourth, they bring in resources in ways that initially seem unattractive to incumbents. And fifth, they are often ignored, put down, or even discouraged by existing organizations, which don't see the catalytic innovators' solutions as viable. As the authors show through examples in health care, education, and economic development, both nonprofit and for-profit groups are finding ways to create catalytic innovation that drives social change.
Purchase this article.
Interested in this subject? You should also read The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy.
December 05, 2006
Max Oliva, Associate Director, Social Impact Management
The Acumen Fund is trying to create an “entrepreneurial bench” of top talent with strong financial and operational skills as well as the moral imagination to build appropriate enterprises with local stakeholders. Through the Acumen Fund Fellows Program, they have identified and developed in their own words "some of the world’s next generation of leaders".
They have just announced a call for extraordinary individuals to build the Acumen Fund Fellows class of 2008, a program which provides them with a unique opportunity to use their skills to effect real social change with our portfolio organizations in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India and Pakistan, and to build lasting relationships with other like-minded individuals. Fellows will spend one year working with their team and with local entrepreneurs, gaining intensive experience in price performance, logistics, distribution systems, scaling and innovative technology. Fellows will learn and apply these skills while enjoying an unusual level of responsibility both at Acumen Fund and within our portfolio organizations.
Ideal fellows include those who have already decided on a career in venture philanthropy, those who are seeking a career at the highest levels in the corporate world but want to better understand and have an impact on problems of global poverty, and budding social entrepreneurs who want to learn about managing organizations in the most demanding settings.
The application's deadline is January 31, 2007, having the selection phase by mid-April and the program beginning in September. You can find more information and application guidelines at Acumen Fund.
Apply now.
Learn more about the Fellows Program.
Acumen Fund and Social Entrepreneurship in Action.
Max Oliva, Associate Director, Social Impact Management
The Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has around $10bn raised money to fight these diseases, has recently held its 14th board meeting. It's interesting to see the views from different stakeholders in regards to this meeting in order to make an assessment of their work. Although it has a very challenging future, being results focused, governance and other methods make it a learning organization which allows them to improve their processes and methodology on an ongoing basis.
According to the Financial Times, “its governance structure, which offers board seats to developing nations and non-governmental groups as well as donor nations and the private sector, is one of the more pioneering aspects of its operation. It is designed to provide “ownership” to recipients as well as donors, encouraging them to be more responsive and effective.” It has however challenging issues which it must still tackle.
They have planned a Five-Year Evaluation which will be implemented under the guidance of the TERG. It is framed by a set of three overarching questions related to the organizational efficiency of the Global Fund; the effectiveness of the Global Fund partner environment; and the impact of the Global Fund on the three diseases. This report will be ready in 2008.
“Four years ago, almost nobody in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world was receiving treatment. That well over one million people with AIDS are on now on treatment through the support of Global Fund is a remarkable achievement,” Professor Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund.
Feel like contributing with your knowledge? How about taking part on the Five Year Evaluation of the Global Fund? You have until January 15th, 2007.
Feel more committed? They are recruiting!
See a very compelling video by Kristen Ashburn, who has photographed the impact of AIDS in southern Africa in case you still need a small motivational push...
December 04, 2006
Max Oliva, Associate Director, Social Impact Management
Hernando de Soto has just won this year’s Economist Innovation Award.
As a founder and president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, Hernando de Soto has been working fully for the promotion of property rights and economic development. Bureaucracy and the lack of formal property rights are major causes of poverty in developing countries; red tape and the lack of legal title to property, preventing its use as collateral, make it hard for the poor to establish or expand business. De Soto’s property tilting scheme has helped more than 1,2 million families, having implemented similar reforms in El Salvador, Haiti, Tanzania and Egypt. He has championed the use of league tables to shame governments into cutting red tape.
We have followed De Soto's work this year through the blog, having learned and shared his view and that of his centre. He recently joined us in the Sumaq's Corporate Responsibility Congress; it's conversations as his that we should constantly engage in and be more aware of. Congratulations Mr. De Soto!
Learn more about Hernando de Soto
Listen to Mr. de Soto’s speech which recently took place at Clinton's Global Innitative.
December 01, 2006
Watch a 40 second message of Bono in regards to AIDS.
In 2000, heads of state made a promise to halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS by 2015.
New reports by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that, as of 2006, the epidemic continues to spread in every region of the world. By now more than 65 million people have been infected with HIV and well over 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981, 2.9 million in 2006 alone. At this rate, the WHO predicts that in the next 25 years another 117 million people will die, making AIDS the third leading cause of death worldwide.
Anything strange about this familiar image? The (RED) campaign is getting a great boost today by google.com
According to research revealed by the BBC, More than a million jobs are being lost every year from the spread of HIV/Aids, the bulk of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Clinton Foundation is to Lead $50 Million Effort with UNITAID to Assist 40 Countries to Expand Treatment to 100,000 Additional Children in 2007
"Accountability -- the theme of this World AIDS Day -- requires every President and Prime Minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that “AIDS stops with me”... But accountability applies not only to those who hold positions of power. It also applies to all of us... And it requires every one of us help bring AIDS out of the shadows, and spread the message that silence is death." Kofi A. Annan
Read his full message here.
The Independent is following up with their second (RED) Edition.
Visit the World AIDS Campaign.
Visit the World AIDS Day webpage.
Which is the actual situation in regards to AIDS and Africa?
Uniting The World against AIDS.
The Global Business Coallition fight against HIV/AIDS.
The conversation between economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Jagdish Bhagwati and Bill Easterly is worth being followed.
First things first. How about taking part on that conversation? You can ask a question to Jagdish Bhagwati at Managing Globalization, until today in order to receive a reply. As a background, I enclose several conversations beginning with Joseph Stiglitz Q&A, Jeffrey Sach’s Q&A and an interesting conversation which has taken part in the WSJ between Jeffrey Sachs and Bill Easterly.
"Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the “invisible hand” and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there." J. Stiglitz
Ms Nancy Birdsall “had compared my book (In Defense of Globalization) with that of Stiglitz. In particular, she had compared, I was told, our respective Indexes to see how many times the phrases: “fair trade” and “social justice” had appeared in the Index; and of course she declared that Stiglitz outnumbered Bhagwati… …But the facile comparison, which leads to a conclusion exactly the opposite of what our respective works do, points to the real reason why populist books which rely on such phrases rather than the substance of the arguments, are so popular with the public…” J. Bhagwati
How about a debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid?
I hope you enjoy it…
