As we approach the target date of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, discussions on what will replace them are gaining momentum. This week the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 agenda is holding its fourth meeting, focusing on global partnerships. The role of the private sector is high on the agenda.
Businesses have played an important role in contributing to the MDGs by driving economic growth; bringing investment; creating employment and increasing access to goods and services such as health and education. It is the innovation of private enterprise that has enabled the world to eliminate diseases, and transform the way we communicate, travel, and use information technology.
However, businesses can also commit, or contribute to, a wide range of abuses of human rights. Recent global crises – the credit crunch, rising food prices, climate change and social unrest – have shown how businesses are inseparably linked to these problems, more often than not with the power to exacerbate them.
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