Harnessing the power of business for development impact: towards the fourth generation,

Collectively, the speakers and participants in the BAA-DFID-ODI meetings series on business and development have made an inspiring and convincing case:

• First, that there are strong synergies between business and development – in other words, that there are ways of doing business that benefit local communities and national economies, that are also good for business profitability and sustainability.
• Second, that such benefits can be measured, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative measures.
• And third, that governments and donors have a role to play in kick-starting and incentivising best practice.

In addition, however, the meetings have shown:

• Fourth, that scaling up remains a major challenge.

And, to my mind:

• Fifth, that the debate could benefit from stronger connections to other development topics.

I want to concentrate on the public policy implications of the wider debate, and on the action points which follow. By way of introduction, however, a word on the first four points..... for the full article click on the link above