The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently unveiled a platform which allows business leaders, policy makers, development practitioners, and academia to connect with successful enterprises across the globe.
According to the UN's development organisation, the platform will help them build, replicate or scale up core business initiatives that contribute to human development.
“The knowledge management platform - features evidence-based case studies, publications and contacts of related actors focused on inclusive business models - models that include poor people into value chains as producers, employees and consumers,” it says.
This is aimed to support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, the deadline for the eight internationally-agreed targets which aim to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and child deaths, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality and environmental degradation, it adds.
The director of UNDP Private Sector Division, Henry Jackelen, says: “With five years left to 2015, it is important that the private sector play its role in speeding up progress on the MGDs.” He says the case studies in this database present evidence that it is possible for companies to fight poverty while remaining commercially viable.
Winifred Karugu, MD of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Enterprises in Kenya, says from the perspective of developing country entrepreneurs and academics, being able to easily access information from all regions what such inspiring cases ―where challenges are often similar- is very helpful to spur the replication of successful initiatives and foster greater South-South knowledge-sharing and cooperation.
This open-access platform is developed by UNDP's Growing Inclusive Markets (GIM) initiative and it features two complementary databases, UNDP says. “The Knowledge Database contains 120 in-depth business case studies and several publications from major institutions active in the private sector and development field,” it adds.
As part of this database, UNDP says the GIM initiative has commissioned 70 new case studies from over 30 developing countries, business schools and institutions, which will be released in the coming months.
It says the database is easily searchable by various criteria such as region, business sector, themes - like climate change, conflict, financial inclusion - organisation, or MDG. “The case studies are also searchable based on the constraints they face and the solutions used to overcome them.”
Additionally, the Actor Database comprises 260 supporting actors at local, regional or global level who can provide financing, share expertise, raise awareness and work towards introducing relevant policies.
They include government entities, academic institutions, development agencies, multi-stakeholder platforms and nonprofit organisations. They are searchable by country and service sector - from policy to research and advocacy, financing and capabilities.
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