Vatican City — The first of its kind, Time Magazine and Fortune’s Global Forum earlier this month gathered Fortune 500 CEOs, successful professionals and other influential people to discuss how the private sector can help end poverty. In an era in which the world’s citizens distrust corporations and U.S. corporations seem to be gaining leverage, Time and Fortune’s letter to Pope Francis highlighted more than 20 tangible solutions to how the private sector can help end poverty.
Influential attendees such as Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, Koos Bekker, chairman of Naspers, and Dominic Barton, global managing partner of McKinsey & Company, participated as co-chairs in a working group. To address global unemployment, the group committed to developing business metrics that define human capital as an asset rather than a cost, embracing inclusion and encouraging a long-term capitalism.
About a week after the forum, President-elect Donald Trump selected Liveris, whose opinions conflict with Trump’s own protectionist theories, to head a manufacturing council. Dow Chemical employs nearly 50,000 worldwide, exports to nearly 180 countries and manufactures in 35 countries across the globe. Months before, Dow Chemical announced that it would shed about four percent of its global workforce as part of an effort to cut $500 million from annual expenses.
Ginni Rometty, CEO of International Business Machines (IBM), is a staunch advocate for “new collar” jobs and also joined the forum’s working groups. Her group focussed on the need to bring primary education to all children, particularly children of migrants, young girls and the rural poor. IBM champions six-year public high schools which combine traditional educational models with real-world experience.
The “new collar” program can potentially upend education, creating a more distinct relevance between education and employer needs. It can also provide relevant skill sets to many of the world’s marginalized youth, thereby making them very attractive to potential employers, which is one way the private sector can help end poverty.
Unlike Dow Chemical, IBM operates in more than 170 countries around the world. Recently, the company revealed plans to hire approximately 25,000 professionals over the next four years in the United States while investing $1 billion in employee training and development.
Other working groups committed to supporting working innovations rather than wasting resources to create new programs. If corporations support proven innovations created by nonprofits, then total efficiency can be maximized. For example, Last Mile Health, a nonprofit run by Raj Panjabi, trains local villagers to be community health workers. In 2014, it was credited with preventing the spread of Ebola in Liberia. Digital financial technology (‘fintech’) has made transformational gains to broaden financial access to hard-to-reach populations, and it offers basic services to refugees fleeing violence.
Pearson CEO John Fallon collaborated with Ford Foundation president Darren Walker, Dassault Systèmes CEO Bernard Charlès and Time’s editorial directors on solutions to expanding education for all. Kate James, Pearson’s global marketing officer, explained in a CNBC interview that the company was focused on U.N. Sustainable Development Goal four: quality of education.
In a coalition of more than 90 partners ranging from Microsoft to USAID, Pearson’s Project Literacy seeks to provide 750 million people with basic literacy skills. Their campaigning capabilities are second to none; Pearson’s Alphabet for Literacy reached 13 million people.
Denise Morrison, president and CEO of Campbell Soup Co., proposed boosting smallholder farmers in the developing world, reducing food waste and improving food industry water management. Campbell Soup Co. has funded gardens, mobile food pantries, nutrition education and cooking classes in underprivileged schools.
Many of the forum’s participants stressed the need for collaboration between business, government and society. Several of the working groups supported new metrics for social and environmental returns in performance evaluations.
What is most encouraging is that these business leaders not only discussed, but pledged to implement more than 20 viable solutions for how the private sector can help end poverty. On the final day, Pope Francis addressed the forum’s participants at the Vatican, claiming that “work is fundamental to the dignity of the person”. Many of the world’s movers and shakers agreed with his sentiment.
For a more comprehensive look into the proposed solutions on how the private sector can help end poverty, visit Fortune + Time Global Forum- Working Group Solutions.
– Andy Jung
Photo: Flickr