here - Tamarack CCI
here - Tamarack CCI
here - Tamarack CCI
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
The Case for Multisectoral Collaboration<br />
T<strong>here</strong> are many interconnected reasons why adverse social conditions like poverty, or crime, or<br />
environmental degradation exist. Rarely can any of those conditions be changed by altering one<br />
single variable. In poor families, for example, each problem magnifies the impact of the others.<br />
A ll of the problems are so intertwined that one negative change can produce a chain reaction,<br />
the results impacting on all aspects of life.<br />
A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child’s asthma, which leads to a call for an<br />
ambulance, which generates a medical bill which can not be paid, which ruins a credit<br />
record, which hikes the interest on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an<br />
unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother’s punctuality at work, which limits her<br />
promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing.<br />
The poor have less control than the affluent over their private decisions, less insulation<br />
from the cold machinery of government, less agility to navigate the pitfalls of a frenetic<br />
world driven by technology and competition. Their personal mistakes have larger<br />
consequences, and their personal achievements yield smaller returns.<br />
If problems are interlocking, then solutions must be as well. T<strong>here</strong> is no single variable<br />
that can be altered to help people move away from the edge of poverty. Poverty, like<br />
many other social ills, can only be reduced by attacking a full array of factors. 2<br />
When we accept that interlocking problems require interlocking solutions, we soon recognize<br />
that these solutions require multisectoral collaboration. They will require many stakeholders to<br />
collaborate to bring about the social transformation that is desired.<br />
Collaborating with Business for Social Transformation<br />
- 7 -