Paul Polman: Ending poverty through partnership

As CEO of Unilever Paul Polman is an advocate for what he calls Long Term Capitalism which distances itself from the traditional short termism that we're all familiar with. 

Suggesting a framework for partnership he says "the framework must recognise that the best way of bringing people out of poverty is through economic development – which in turns requires governments creating the right conditions for business to flourish."

We's put it like this, in our 2003 proposal for a 'at risk' Muslim community:

"It is not enough to merely give people the things they need to survive. This will work for a short time, but is not a long-term solution. There is an old saying: give a man a fish and he can eat for one day. Teach him to fish and he can eat for a lifetime. Giving people enough to live today may be enough for today, but it is not enough for tomorrow. Helping and teaching people to make a living, sustain themselves and their families, is in fact the only long-term solution to the problem of poverty. Further, for the first phase of economic development or economic recovery of any location, it is also possible to create an ongoing source of the critical funding needed to get the job done. Capitalism and market economy comprise the best economic engine ever invented. Assisting poor communities in developing their own markets is now meeting growing acceptance as the best way to go to alleviate poverty. The profit motive, integral to capitalism and market economics, is the driving force for successful economies around the world."

As one may read from our background in "bottom up" economic development. It was something I was able to relate last year in what were known as the Long Term Capitalism awards, where I posted  - Re-imagining capitalism for people and planet which describes how we began with a business model to tackle poverty.

What Polman says about the need for partnership is reflected in the major strategy plan we shared online in 2007 after submission to government, It described the need for a national centre for social enterprise, saying "This Center will engage students, faculty, business leaders, policy makers and citizen organizations and citizens in a common, unified program toward fulfilling the initial objectives outlined herein. The Center will further create new programs as participants learn new, innovative ways of thinking in identifying, analyzing, understanding and resolving Ukraine’s social and economic problems."

Finding parnership however turned out to be something of an obstacle. We'd followed up the proposal with a letter to USAID and the Senate Council on Foreign Relations and had our own FCO acknowledge they were fully aware of our work.     

Aside from support organisations in the world of social enterprise we'd introduced our proposal directly to the Britiish Council and Erste Bank, a Grameen Partner.

It all seemed to no avail until we discovered that USAiD, with the British Council, Price Waterhouse Cooper and Erste Bank were setting up a replica of our project. Their partnership criteria included the ability to make a financial contribution, therby excluding the social value we'd already invested.

They were even using the definition of social enterprise from our proposal, which derives from  our 1996 paper on an alternative to capitalism 

Similarly, our approaches to Virgin Unite, SAB Miller and other 'socially responsible' corporations would fall on deaf ears   

The last thing they seemed to want was our parnership and it was becoming very clear that our focus on "those in greatest need" was the obstacle. I refer to children in institutional care, who we'd identified as a cash cow for organised crime. 

It's been said of social enterprise and CSR that it only tackles the 'nice' problems , steering around that which might present greater challenges and this was an area where they feared to tread

So the answer was to hijack what we'd developed and serve it up as their own .

As a consequence, rather than Kharkiv - an international education centre, the social enterprise centre was opened in Donetsk, the industrial and organised crime heartland  

As local human rights activists would reveal in their tribute, their were dark matters which few cared to talk about let alone change.  

It may be a good sound bite but Paul Polman should think again about what corporate partnership really means, before more lives are lost.    .