News/Events

WDI’s NextBillion Editor At New York Conference

Thursday, September 25, 2014

NextBillion, an initiative of WDI, is serving as a media partner for the Business Call to Action Annual Forum 2014 in New York City.

Scott Anderson, right

Held in the same week as the United Nations General Assembly, the forum brings together multinational company leaders, NGOs, small entrepreneurs, and public sector agency representatives interested in harnessing business solutions to poverty and sustainability.

Launched at the United Nations in 2008, the nearly 100-member Business Call to Action (BCtA) aims to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models catering to people in emerging markets earning less than $8 per day. With the MDGs nearing their conclusion in 2015, focus has shifted toward designing and adopting Sustainable Development Goals (SGBs) to address both climate change and poverty.

This process has brought many more businesses to the table than during the MGD process years earlier, noted Stuart Hart, who moderated the morning plenaries. Hart is the Grossman Endowed Chair in Sustainable Business at the Univesity of Vermont Business School and the S.C. Johnson Chair emertitus at Cornell University.

Working with BCtA, NextBillion Managing Editor Scott Anderson conducted video interviews with 11 senior-level executives at companies and multinational organizations that are creating products, services and public-private partnerships to improve health, agricultural and technological benefits for base of the pyramid populations. The videos will be co-branded with NextBillion and BCtA and will be available online later this fall.

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