Meet the consumer today's business needs to targe

Parliamentary Brief14Delivering the MDGsThese case studies of companiesfrom across the worldshow how business can driveprogress toward the MDGs.MDG 1: eradicatepoverty and hungerJuan Valdez Café Company, Colombia;CocoTech, PhilippinesJuan Valdex Cafe offers higher, more stableincomes to over 500,000 small-scale coffeegrowers. But even smaller-scale projects canhave great repercussions. In the Philippines,where coconut farmers are among the poorestpeople, CocoTech involves more than 6,000families in cocofibre net production.MDG 2: Universalprimary educationTsinghua Tongfang (THTF), ChinaTHTF markets computers to China’s ruralpopulation that include pre-installed distanceeducation software, both for primary andmiddle school education and for minoritylanguage education. The minority languageprogramme’s online video classes, recordedin quality middle schools with minority students,allow THTF’s rural customers to learnin their own language.MDG 3: Gender equality andthe empowerment of womenForus Bank, RussiaFinancial institutions can increase accessto finance — an important need for themany women micro-entrepreneurs in developingcountries. In Russia, over 80 per centof Forus Bank’s clients are women, most ofthem in retail businesses; in 2006 the bankhelped create 4,250 direct and 19,950 indirectjobs.MDG 4: Reducechild mortalityPesinet, Mali and SenegalIn Mali, where in 2000 more than 22 percent of infants died before their first birthday,Pésinet is making a difference in the communitieswhere it operates by providing an earlywarning method for monitoring the healthconditions of children under age five fromlow-income families. In Saint Louis, Senegal,where Pésinet started, the infant mortalityrate fell by more than 90 per cent between2002 and 2005 from 120 per 1,000 livebirths to eight per 1,000.MDG 5: Improve maternalhealthVidaGas, MozambiqueThe liquefied petroleum gas providedby VidaGas to clinics in Cabo Delgadoimproves the sterility of medical instrumentsused to deliver babies. Where most publicclinics were once short of essential drugs, andmost maternal deaths resulted from infectionand hemorrhage caused by complications inpregnancy, today’s reliable fuel supply, coldchain for medicines and better distributionof medicines all improve maternal health.MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS,malaria and other diseasesA to Z Textile Mills, TanzaniaA to Z provide affordable, long-lastinginsecticide-treated bed nets that preventmosquitoes from spreading malaria, reducingdeaths by 50 per cent. The success ofthis enterprise lies in its extensive privatepublicpartnerships. Sumitomo, a Japanesecompany, transfers technology and chemicalsto A to Z through a loan from AcumenFund. A to Z then buys resin for the netsfrom ExxonMobil, which donates funds toUNICEF to buy the treated nets for the mostvulnerable children.MDG 7: Create the basicconditions of decent housingA South African bank supported by theAgence Française de Développement (AFD)is increasing the number of its social housingprojects, targeting a growing number of thepoorest households through the payment ofan intermediary aid subsidy. It exemplifiesthe type of business model that includes thepoor and offers gain for all.MDG 8: Develop a globalpartnership for developmentSmart, the PhilippinesSmart is reducing the ‘digital divide’ andhelping develop a partnership for developmentby providing low-cost, prepaid mobilephone airtime cards. It also eases financialtransactions by providing the option tosend remittances using technology. Witha network covering over 99 per cent of thepopulation, Smart’s focus on the low-incomemarket enables it to serve 24.2 millionpeople. In 2003, Smart was the year’s mostprofitable of the 5,000 largest corporations inthe Philippines.and for the poor themselves. These are:limited market information, ineffective regulatoryenvironments, inadequate physicalinfrastructure, missing knowledge and skills,and restricted access to financial productsand services.To overcome these constraints takes creativityfrom and co-operation between manyactors. In the report we note five of the mostconsistent and effective strategies: to adaptproducts and processes, to invest in trainingor infrastructure to remove constraints, toleverage the strengths of the poor to increaselabour and management pools and to expandlocal knowledge, to engage in policy dialogueswith governments, and to work withsimilarly-minded businesses, non-profitorganizations or public service providers.By using a more inclusive businessmodel businesses drive innovation, developnew markets, enlarge the labour pool andstrengthen supply chains, and at the sametime are helping the poor to meet their basicneeds, increasing their incomes and empoweringthem.Moreover, business with the poor can beprofitable, sometimes even more profitablethan more traditional businesses. The NarayanaHrudayalaya (NH) hospital group, acardiac health care provider to the poor inIndia, uses a business model that attractsfull-price paying patients who, along withthe NH foundation, subsidize surgeries forthe poor. No one is denied health care even ifthey are unable to pay.Yet profits are 20 per cent — higher thanthe leading comparable traditional hospital.Such financial self-sustainability allowsenterprises like NH to increase their reachand thus their impact, particularly withregard to achieving MDGs.A closer look at several of the case studiesdemonstrates the direct impact inclusivebusiness models have on the MDGs (seeDelivering the MDGs, left, to discover howcompanies from across the globe are usingbusiness acumen with a social conscience tocreate drivers of MDGs in their local communities).Creating Value for All, by presentingthese case studies, is intended to encouragethe development of more inclusive businessmodels like these. It also presents practicaltools to enable businesses to see this through.One tool is the strategy matrix, which isdesigned to help identify market constraintsand also to look at various strategies toaddress them. Another effective tool consistsof so-called ‘heat maps’, which identifybusiness opportunities by visually presentinggeographical overviews of access to water,credit, electricity or telephone service for specificregions; see Tools for the job (page right)for a more detailed example.Even when these tools are employed andOCTOBER 2008