Presented by Bianca PhilippiOn March 6, 2009

at the Eller College of ManagementUniversity of Arizona

Thinking Forward: Leadership and Innovation in Marketing Conference

Voices and Values of the Poor: Their Role in Cross

Sector Partnerships

"Eradicating extreme poverty continues to be one of the main challenges of our time, and is a major concern of the international community. Ending this scourge will require the combined efforts of all, governments, civil society organizations and the private sector, in the context of a stronger and more effective global partnership for development.”

United Nations Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon

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The Millennium Development

Goals

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences and summits, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets - with a deadline of 2015 - that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals. Goal #8 is Develop a Global Partnership for Development. 4

Of the world’s 6.4 billion people, about 2.6 billion live on less than $2.00 US per day.

Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

More than a billion lack electricity and 5.4 billion lack access to the Internet.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

Some Statistics

People living at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” (less than $2/day ) by region

consumptionproductioninnovation entrepreneurial activity

The Potential of the Poor

The poor harbor a potential for:

all of which are largely untapped.

The poor participate in the private sector.All are consumers.Most are employees or self-employed, yet

fragmented and informal markets prevent too many of them from obtaining the resources they need and from using the resources wisely.

Among the poor, much business is informal.Friends and family often provide credit.

What goods and services do they need and want?

How much can they pay?What goods could they produce and what

services can they provide?

There is a lack of information on the poor

Meeting basic needsProviding access to goods and servicesEarning opportunities that foster economic

empowerment

Doing Business with the Poor

…often focuses on

Poverty is multi-dimensional (it’s rarely about the lack of one thing.)

Poverty has important psychological dimensions (powerlessness, voicelessness, dependency, shame, humiliation)

The poor lack access to basic infrastructure (roads, transportation, clean water)Poor people realize education offers an

escape from poverty, but only if education and the economic environment in society at large improve

What we know about poverty

Illness is greatly feared because of the very high costs and an inability to work

The poor rarely speak of income but rather focus on managing assets – physical, social, human and environmental, as a way to cope with vulnerability

What we know about poverty cont.

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to identify common ground between the private and the public sectors

to combine the skills and expertise of the private sector with the public sector's legitimacy and knowledge of development issues

Partnerships focus on the many areas where private actors and public institutions can engage in win-win relationships, such as poverty reduction, health, education and community development.

The basic concept of partnerships is simple and straightforward…

Effective cross-sector partnerships can make it possible to overcome challenges that are too difficult or complex for one organization or sector to address alone.

Partnerships can also make efforts more effective by combining resources and competencies in innovative ways.

Collaboration can enable companies and organizations to better achieve their own individual objectives through leveraging, combining and capitalizing on complementary strengths and capabilities.

“From public health issues such as smoking and obesity through to the whole climate change debate, the issues we face as a society have never been bigger. We believe that engaging the private sector with all the expertise at its disposal will help make the impact necessary to surmount these issues. And for the private sector, social marketing represents the best kind of CSR program – one which makes a real difference.”

- Colin Shevills, a director at Porter Novelli

What is social marketing?Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen define social marketing as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society." 1

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Social marketing as a technique has been used extensively in international health programs, especially for contraceptives and oral rehydration therapy (ORT), and is being used with more frequency in the United States for such diverse topics as drug abuse, heart disease and organ donation.

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Poverty reduction programs, CSR initiatives or cross-sector partnerships frequently fail or perform sub-optimally. Why?

Personal RelationshipsCultural IdentitySpiritual Meaning

All of which may be as intensely valued as basic capabilities like health, education and income.

What matters to the poor?

ExclusionaryViolentContentious

Traditional Practices or Approaches

are often viewed by the poor as:

must relate to their values and aspirations, and take

their culture into account.

Communication and collaboration with the Poor

are not confined to their material circumstances.

The Energy, Visions and Aspirations of the Poor

Culture is a “cast of mind” or “way of life.”(health, reproduction, security, knowledge, work and play, relationships, aesthetics, decision-making, spirituality)

So what is culture in this context?

Different cultures have distinctive ways of supporting, expressing and undertaking these dimensions.

Interviews were conducted with senior CSR executives at multinational corporations, government officials and non-profit leaders on their experiences with cross-sector partnerships.

“At the beginning of the partnership process you still feel some tensions or difficulties because the other side is so incredibly different and is almost the contrary of what you are, and often if you bring new people to the partnership table from your own organization, they will feel that again, oh my gosh, the language they’re using and how they behave, it’s so different from us…”

- partnership broker/facilitator

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Other highlights from the interviews included…

People involved in partnership work need to be acknowledged/rewarded (feel appreciated).

Developing partnerships involves a great deal of strategy.

It’s a good idea to have a partnership document or contract.

The main objective should be to empower people on the ground to help themselves.

Companies are often just viewed as a “cash cow” and criticized for not doing more faster. 2

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There are misconceptions that the NGOs are the “good guys” possessing ethics and values and the corporations are the “bad guys” in partnership work.

Agreeing upon shared commitments is not easy.

People often come to the partnership table with very different perspectives and expectations.

Ideally, in a partnership the outcome is greater than any one member could have produced alone.

Partnerships often benefit from a coach or a facilitator.

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Prior to engaging in partnership work, you have to know yourself (your company/organization) and know what you have to offer as a prospective partner or if you are even ready.

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A frequently used metaphor for partnerships is marriage.

Of NoteNone of those interviewed spoke of the poor as “partners.”

The poor were often mentioned as being “served” or helped as a result of partnerships, but the partners were considered to be the corporations, government agencies or NGOs.

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Interviewing and Spending Time With the Poor

Brazil

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Founder of IDETI, Institute of the Traditions of Indigenous People

“The dream, the desire of my grandfather was to spread the Xavante culture, to promote the Xavante culture to people in Brazil. Not only in Brazil but [he and other elders] wanted to influence the way companies, government chose to deal with this indigenous culture and this paternalism. How we are treated. How the decisions are imposed and he believes in democratic dialog and that we have to invest in these ways if you want to find sustainable solutions for the indigenous [inaudible] in Brazil…and to empower the indigenous people to find our own solutions to – to have and maintain our rights.”

- Jurandir Siridiwê Xavante

Amazon Wisdom

“We were told that the government was planning to build dams on our rivers, cut down our trees and steal minerals from the soil. What will happen to us? Are we to die with the fish, disappear with the animals and fall with the trees? Even when the white man thinks that our traditions are gone, they are very wrong about this. Even if it seems like we are holding on by a thread, we will keep our culture alive… We have been the stewards of the water source for generations. It is our legacy.”

- Xavante elder

The next generation of indigenous tribal leaders in Manaus, Brazil

Insights from the Landless Workers

“We are not against progress, but we must ask who does it benefit? In most cases, not us.”

“This (a small barren tree with an overflowing garbage bag hanging from one of its branches) makes me very sad and ashamed for us as

a people. These are not our values. We (the catadores in my cooperative) respect the environment and nature and want to teach others to

do the same.”

- catadore in Sao Paolo

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“…there is no such thing as a ‘favelado’ (slum-dweller); there are many people with pride and dignity here who know and are learning how to do the things they want.”

Lesotho

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Lessons from Lesotho

South Africa

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Squatter homes in Soweto

“People came and promised us they were going to build us houses. And then they never built the houses…It was painful. They promised to build houses for us in 2000. Then they never built them…I can say most of the people [who come around] they’re not honest, they don’t know how to trust. People said we don’t want to listen to you anymore. We listened, we believed in what they said and at the end as a community here we decided that now we’re tired of this…you suffer in this place.”

- female squatter, age 32

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Shop in Soweto

“The rock is something that you take from outside. If you put it right here on the floor and go to town and when you come back the rock will not have moved. You’ll still find it on the same place where you put it…It is a big rock, a hard rock. A rock that is unbreakable. If you have to break it, you have to use all sources of power to break it. (If the rock had a personality how would you describe that?) A person who is kind, who is able to socialize with other people. A God fearing person, who knows God, who doesn’t feel pain.. It’s a person even if you make it feel the pain but you make sure that you accept the pain and go on with life. I don’t hurt easily.” - female squatter, 43 5

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“When I see an old man, I usually think of wise people… because you think wisdom comes with age. Wisdom is what we should all be looking for. Knowledge is liberating…

When you go to school - to university –and you’ve got this knowledge - you feel liberated. You start to have confidence. You’re building self esteem. When I look at this man, I see someone who has reached a level that most of us are aspiring to reach. And also this man…maybe he’s a spiritual person.

 I believe that wisdom should go hand and hand with spirituality. People shouldn’t just have knowledge about science and everything but they should also have spirituality. Life and knowledge and education should be about making people better. If there’s no spiritual donation - you can still get the degree, but if you don’t have respect for human life, for other people, you are not complete. When I see this man, I see a complete man. I see someone who’s got wisdom and inspiration and an inkling. “

Excerpt from interview with CIDA student, male age 23

Within their four-year training, CIDA students are required to return every few months to teach in their own village high schools. The students therefore become the ideal community developers and serve as a unique bridge between first-world knowledge and third world poverty and under-development.

The students speak the local language, understand the culture, people, and local folklore, and in this way are highly inspiring role models who have ‘made it’ in the big city.

"By presenting visions of development as seen by the underdogs of society, this helps us understand the real nature of development. The importance of freedom as the central feature of development emerges powerfully from these 'internal' views. These unrestrained voices deserve the attention not only of scholars and academics, but also of governments, international institutions, business communities, labor organizations, and civil society across the world.”

- Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Laureate for Economics

The Challenge

What role can marketers play in helping to create value for organizations as well as the poor through global cross-sector partnerships?

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Consumers’ personal values and cultural contexts are explored to understand the deeper reasons and motivations for their behavior, while helping to identify unmet needs.

Objective: To identify opportunities for creating new products and services.

As Marketers, we put a lot of effort into researching consumer values and culture…

It is all about personal values and alignment of these values to those of a prospective organization and its staff that a donor chooses to support. Savvy non-profits have been conducting research on the motivations of donors to better understand their values and foster continued support.

In the donor research I conduct…

that will not take on projects or work in a way that violates the values of the founder or others working within the organization.

A values-based business is one

“Poor people around the world have challenged us to create new partnerships with them; partnerships in which they experience love, respect, listening, caring, honesty, fairness, unity, and helpfulness. In their simple words, poor people have shown us the real meaning of values-based development. ”- Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury and co-Chair of World Faiths Development Dialogue in his comments on the book, Voices of the Poor.

Thank you

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Q & A

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  Questions:

How do we deal with power issues and dynamics so that partnerships are not top down and honor the values and needs of all stakeholders?

 How can power and decision–making be genuinely shared in a partnership?

 How do we recognize the values of the poor and excluded and facilitate their capabilities to act effectively in partnerships?

 

How do we identify what the values are and how they relate to facilitating the capabilities of the poor?

What might cross-sector or multi-stakeholder partnerships look like if they truly honored the values of the poor and reflected a larger commitment to human rights and obligations?

 How can we build on indigenous knowledge, cultures, skills, innovations, ideas, development processes and experiences of the poor in the creation of partnerships?

 How can we ensure that we are not silencing the voices of the poor?

 How can we make room in a genuine/authentic way for the voices and values of the poor?