Fight against poverty needs private sector

The private sector is increasing its role in poverty alleviation, and best practices among firms should be shared to reduce poverty in Southeast Asia, experts said during a ceremony on Tuesday.

“Before, the private sector had always been after profit; but now they say, we need a good market and we need to make this market prosper,” said Ma. Nieves Confesor, a faculty member of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and former Labor secretary.

More than just corporate social responsibility, Confesor said private businesses were realizing that they have the resources to help lessen the incidence of poverty.

Hence, more and more firms were investing in mass housing, health and education, she added.

Filemon Uriarte Jr., Asean Foundation executive director, also cited the increasing number of large international nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that are devoting greater resources to combat poverty.

Asean is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional block of 10 countries that includes the Philippines.

Pact against poverty

AIM and the Asean Foundation on Tuesday signed an agreement to cooperate on the project dubbed “Mainstreaming Poverty Alleviation Initiatives among Asean-member Countries.”

In this project, effective private sector practices in alleviating poverty will be identified and shared across the regional grouping.

Edilberto de Jesus, AIM president, said, “Widespread and debilitating poverty continues to be the most formidable developmental challenge in Asean member-countries . . . In spite of initiatives to enhance social development in the region, there have been no—or too little—interagency and cross-country comparisons of strategies.”

“Regional experience in poverty reduction is diverse and the successes of individual countries and organizations may not have been sufficiently replicated or up-scaled due to lack of information,” he added.

De Jesus said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has allocated $1 million for the project, on top of contributions from AIM, Asean Foundation and some Asean member-countries.

AIM’s Center for Development Management will manage this project, which aims to mainstream and improve poverty alleviation initiatives through the sharing of knowledge in development interventions; and establish a viable and dynamic sub-regional hub for amassing information and producing knowledge products on poverty alleviation and inclusive growth and participated in by knowledge institutions in Southeast Asia.

Uriarte said that for the Asean to attain be fully integrated, widespread poverty in less developed nations, such as those belonging to the so-called CMLV subgroup—Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam—should be addressed.

“We need to prosper our neighbors to attain full integration within Asean,” he added.

De Jesus said, “If the CMLV countries don’t quickly come to the level of comparability in terms of development with the original six Asean members, there is no Asean to speak off.”  –Ben Arnold O. De Vera, Reporter, Manila Times