Commercial Benefits Of Supporting Small And Medium Enterprises

Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs delivered a keynote speech.

The commercial benefits of supporting small and medium enterprise expansion in developing countries is one of the topics on the agenda of a workshop on 'Corporate Citizenship in Action: Best Practice and the Millennium Development Goals' on 14 and 15 July 2004 in London, UK. 

The high-level workshop, organised by the Commonwealth Business Council and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, explores how donors and host governments can best support the development of effective private sector approaches to tackling poverty.  

Its outcomes will form the basis of projects for the sharing and dissemination of best practices in corporate citizenship through capacity-building in selected developing countries. 

The workshop will identify possible private sector roles in helping the international community deliver the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality and developing a global partnership for development. 

The meeting is intended to help businesses, governments and other stakeholders prepare for the UN's 'MDGs+5 Summit' in September 2005 that will review international progress in socio-economic development. 

Other issues to be debated by workshop participants include 'bottom of the pyramid' business models for delivering goods and services to the poor; and the benefits and challenges of developing multi-stakeholder partnerships for the delivery of basic services to the poor, particularly the role of the private sector in delivering energy, water and sanitation.  

Keynote speeches were delivered in the opening session on 14 July by Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs; Sir Mark Moody Stewart, chairman of Anglo American plc, a global mining and natural resources company; and Richard Sandbrook, International Co-ordinator for the United Nations Development Programme.

 

CNIS -    the Commonwealth News and Information Service Issue 192   14 July 2004