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Ad Melkert - UN Under Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. ECOSOC Special Event: How Philanthropy Can Contribute to the MDGs, particularly sustainable development

Conversation 1: “Applying strategic philanthropy to the MDGs”

We are at the half-way point in the great global campaign to address the unacceptable divide between rich and poor. The Millennium Declaration and the MDGs have provided a global beacon for progress. But time is running out. Half the population of the developing world still lacks access to basic sanitation; an astounding 1.6 billion does not have access to electricity and 2.5 billion people continue to rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating. And climate change threatens the chance of millions in Africa, Asia and Central America to escape poverty .

Yet, I believe there is a powerful coalition emerging to catalyse progress where it is most needed. The Millennium Development Goals campaign is in its eight year, just halfway and there are good reasons to believe that the momentum is, and will be, increasing. Google and Cisco’s contribution to have the UNDP initiative transferred into the www.MDGmonitor.org website is one of the illustrations of the broad commitment to go for measurable development results. Despite setback and unfulfilled commitments, Official Development Assistance can be expected to increase; new countries have joined traditional donors to provide support for development efforts around the world. Equally promising is the steady growth in philanthropy that we are witnessing today . The news of Warren Buffet’s historic gift in 2006 to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , the establishment by CelTel founder Dr. Mo Ibrahim of a foundation that supports good governance in Africa, and the new focus of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation on education and knowledge in the Arab States region are all welcome contributions to advancing development.

As Klaus Schwab wrote in “Foreign Affairs” this month, the new imperative for business is to engage in “global corporate citizenship” whereby “companies not only must be engaged with their stakeholders, but are themselves stakeholders alongside governments and civil society”. This is an important call, responding to the philosophy behind the UN’s Global Compact - a framework bringing together as partners governments, companies and civil society organizations to act jointly in support of the MDGs.

The challenge now is to ensure that the new philanthropic resources are invested in a strategic manner. We know from experience that ODA put to use in an uncoordinated manner yields few sustainable results. What we need is to find ways to combine public efforts with those of foundations to effectively address global challenges and achieve results in global health, environmental sustainability and poverty reduction. It is therefore very welcome to see companies engaged, provided they resist the temptation of piecemeal charity and instead leverage their core assets to take part in the broader effort to achieve the MDGs.

Let me mention some areas in which there is an obvious opportunity: technologies, their role as customers, role in national SME development and people and their skills.

First, companies possess technologies that can be of value to the world’s poorest people, whether it is medical equipment, high-yield seed varieties, fertilizers, computer hardware and software, telecommunications equipment, trucks, or financial service expertise. In many cases the market prices for such goods and services can be prohibitive. So companies could make those technologies available to impoverished regions. The public-private partnerships in the Millennium Villages throughout Africa are an example of how a large number of companies have lent a hand, largely by focusing on their core competency.

Second, companies can enhance the capacity of local small- and medium-sized enterprises and promote access to microfinance, responding to national demand and supporting overall private sector development. We are pleased at UNDP to work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support rural poverty reduction programmes in West Africa. The Foundation has recently awarded a $19 million grant to expand a women’s enterprise development programme in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal which helps mechanize food and agro-processing tasks, thereby increasing the productivity of women’s labour. Women farmers produce higher quality products and are able to sell their products at local and regional markets, thus increasing their incomes.

Third, companies could support corporate volunteering initiatives and encourage their people to volunteer their time, skills, expertise and passion. Corporate investment in volunteers can be cost effective and efficient. Volunteers strengthen development solutions and have the capacity and knowledge to link know-how with community needs. For example, Aquassistance and Energy Assistance are two volunteer associations organized by employees of SUEZ, a French utility corporation, which is a member of the Global Compact. In partnership with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV), they are providing some the world’s most disadvantaged populations access to drinking water and adequate energy, and means to manage waste. Beginning in 2004, Aquassistance sent three UNV Corporate Private Sector missions to Guinea Bissau, to appraise waste management in hospitals in the city of Gabu; to develop a plan of action for the improvement of water service; and to provide technical aid for supplying of water and management of waste.

As these examples show, the UN is an important network for global partnerships. Traditional philanthropy has played an important role in international development assistance. And UNDP has long worked with foundations such as the Aga Khan Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation in areas as diverse as democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, HIV/AIDS and environmental sustainability.

Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to the UN opened the way to the new wave of philanthropy that we are witnessing today. UNDP’s partnership with the UN Foundation (UNF) has helped support the development of new programmes and initiatives. One such example is the UNF’s role in the development of the MDG Carbon Facility, an innovative mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, to leverage carbon finance for under-represented developing countries. In 2007, Fortis Bank was selected as the financial services provider with a commitment to buy 15 million carbon credits produced by the Facility’s projects. The initial UNF $750,000 investment in the MDG Carbon Facility has the potential to ultimately result in direct flows in carbon finance, at illustrative prices, of $225 million to developing countries.

“Corporate philanthropy” can take many shapes and forms. But to achieve results, efforts need to be coordinated and respond to national priorities. I wonder whether the term itself has not been outdated as companies are used to seeking productive social and economic investments – and that is the essence of development: creating infrastructure, security, health and education are conditions for talent to bloom everywhere and for economies to grow. The United Nations invites companies to work in close partnership and to play a bigger role in achieving the MDGs. All actors - development agencies, NGOs, governments and the private sector – need to pool resources. That is why we, at UNDP, look forward to continuing our cooperation with many of you here today, and to developing even closer partnerships in the years ahead.