CSR, Development and the Bottom of the Pyramid We’re talking the same language, aren’t we?

DSA Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Study Group
DSA/EADI Multi-dimensional Poverty Group

Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
18th June 2007

Registration

This is an open meeting but prior registration is required for all attendees. Register by sending an email to Peter Edward (edward(AT)jbs.cam.ac.uk) no later than Friday 1st June 2007.

For information on how to find the Judge Business School see: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/location.html

For latest meeting details see: www.devstud.org.uk/studygroups/responsibility.htm

Theme

Increasingly the business and the development communities are coming together to tackle those persistent developmental concerns: poverty, exclusion and exploitation. This can be a challenging and fraught process with plenty of outspoken critics on both sides. Not only do objectives and measures of success often differ but, more fundamentally, perspectives and world-views can be radically different. Ideas such as development, progress, equity, prosperity and social responsibility can take on very different meanings in such different contexts and cultures. Yet, despite the criticisms and the problems, there is also much common cause - a shared concern that the environmental and social impacts of the spread of global industrialisation require us to find new alliances and new ways of operating.

How do those new ways of operating emerge? What happens when businesses and development organisations work together? How do they find common ground - and what do they learn from each other in the process? What is the value-added of the 'bottom of the pyramid' concept? How do the 'recipient' communities perceive and contribute to all this? How does this differ when the organisation is a local business in a developing country? In short, are we developing a shared way of thinking about, talking about and doing 'development' or do we just 'talk past' each other - we use the same words but the meanings and practices remain too different?

Provisional Programme

10.00 am	Registration
11.30 am	Panel 1 - Perspectives on the business case The business of business is business. So why should corporations be involved in development? Michael Hopkins. MHC International Poverty's case for business: the evidence, misconceptions, conceits and deceit surrounding the business case. Michael Blowfield. Cambridge Programme for Industry, University of Cambridge
12.30 pm	Lunch
1.30 pm	Parallel panels Panel 2 - Perspectives from NGOs and Civil Society The NGO perspective on the Bottom of the Pyramid. Nicola Day and Robert Bailey. Oxfam Why CSR is failing children? Alison Holder. Save the Children UK Social Accountability in the extractive industries. James Van Alstine. London School of Economics and Political Science Panel 3 - Case studies from communities The yawning gap between good intentions and socially responsible behaviour: a failure of commitment in India and the UK. Peter Braithwaite. Institute of Development Studies A non-traditional public-private sector partnership model and rural poverty reduction in Madhya Pradesh, India. Meera Tiwari. University of East London Prospects for corporate sector engagement in pastoral development in Ethiopia. John Morton, Mohammed Mussa, Anne Tallontire. University of Greenwich
3.00 pm	Tea
3.20 pm	Panel 4 - Solutions or Chimera? The Bottom of the Pyramid: the next 'Big' Idea? Andrew Crabtree, Andrew Sumner. Institute of Development Studies Compacts, corporates and development: dismantling the smokescreen. Catia Gregoratti. University of Manchester, Centre for International Politics
4.30 pm	Close

Contacts and queries

If you have any other queries, please contact the conveners:

Peter Edward,
CSR group
p.edward(AT)jbs.cam.ac.uk

Andy Sumner,
MDP group
a.sumner(AT)ids.ac.uk