Update on Millenium Development Goals

Continuing the theme of developing countries and globalisation, a UN Development Programme review of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals convenes in New York tomorrow. The UNDP website says that “The summit is an opportunity to re-energise the global commitment to achieve the eight time-bound goals and agree on a conrete action plan towards meeting the Goals by their target date of 2015. ” It seems that this opportunity to re-energise is much needed; progress towards many of the goals is well behind schedule, and there is only five years left to achieve them, which coincides with government spending cuts around the globe. The Millenium Development Goals progress chart, produced in June, shows that for each of the 8 goals, over half of the indicators show either ” Progress insufficient to reach the target if prevailing trends persist” or “No progress or deterioration.”

The BBC have published an interesting piece about development (or lack of it) in Bangladesh. This looks at the role of the World Food Programme, to provide nutrition to pregnant women and children up to the age of 2, which is the critical age for the brain and body’s development. It also features the work of DSM, which works in the area of life science, biology, pharmaceuticals and vitamins, as well as materials such as plastics. The company has partnered with the World Food Programme to supply the vitamins, minerals and high quality protein, which is added to biscuits that are handed out to children at selected schools. The biscuits are distributed by Sight and Life, a non-profit humanitarian initiative of DSM founded in 1986, and provide an encouragement for children to attend school as they provide a meal which the family may not be able to afford. As a result, they obtain better marks at the end of their schooling and that gives them greater opportunities to find work.

DSM are quite clear about their reasons for doing this: “These partnerships give us the chance to target the neediest of the needy, but these people will also develop and become consumers in a more productive country, it is a very holistic way of looking at why we are working with the World Food Programme. Our shareholders are interested in us having sustainable businesses and we can only do so if we develop a population.” This gives an interesting, and refreshingly honest, combination of corporate objectives - the charitable objective of corporate social responsibility being acknowledged as a long-term investment on behalf of shareholders to build the company’s value for the future.