Creating Integrated Marketing Communication Plan
Integrated marketing communication integrates all aspects of marketing mix to promote products and services among the end-users at the right time and right place. You need to promote your products well for maximum awareness among the end-users. According to integrated marketing communication plan, various methods of promoting a brand are put together for maximum effectiveness […]
The Big Fall: Lehman Brothers
History Lehman Brothers started as a grocery store in Alabama in 1844. Over the years Lehman Brothers grew into a global behemoth. This growth continued till 2008. Lehman Brothers was the fifth largest investment bank in the world and had over 25,000 people directly on its payroll as well as several thousand people indirectly dependent […]
What is Algorithmic Trading ?
Algorithmic trading was considered to be a bookish concept developed by geeks. Less than a decade ago, mainstream traders at Wall Street laughed at the idea that they may have to compete against machines. However, they have been proven wrong. The rise of algorithmic trading is no laughing matter. In about a decade, financial markets […]
Performance Improvement Programs and Their Implications for Organizations
What are PIPs (Performance Improvement Plans/Programs)? This article deals with a rather sad aspect of contemporary organizational policies, yet this is an important aspect that affects all employees and the HR function in addition to the line managers. We often hear the term involuntary separation, which means the resignation of employees after being asked to […]
Limitations & Disadvantages of Decision Support Systems
Limitations of Decision Support Systems Decision support systems have been incorporated into businesses to support human intelligence for years. However, these systems are not perfect. Although DSSs stop a decision maker from promoting a bias, they simply aid in decision making by offering useful insights into easily consumable bites. The idea is to present all […]
The United Nations (UN) Millennium Development goals (MDGs) are a set of goals that were signed into an agreement with the member countries of the UN related to human development, eradication of poverty, providing access to basic services like food, shelter, and clean water to the underprivileged and poor people of the world. These goals though were not legally binding were supposed to bound the members together in pursuit of global humanitarian objectives. These goals were agreed upon in the year 2000 and have several implications for corporates in the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the pursuit of socially and environmentally responsible business practices.
The nature of these MDGs is such that the signatories must pursue the humanitarian objectives in conjunction with the other stakeholders in their countries like Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Civil Society, and the Corporates. Towards this end, they would have to allocate resources for the actualization of the MDGs and work in conjunction with the corporates to reach out to the underprivileged and the needy. This means that the corporates would have to discharge their duties as responsible corporate citizens and hence, must correspondingly adhere to the norms of the UN MDGs.
The funding for the programs identified under the MDGs must be shared between the government and the other stakeholders and this means that the corporates would have to share some of the burden. However, as mentioned earlier, since these MDGs are not legally binding and represent a kind of directive principles of state policies wherein member countries are encouraged to pursue humanitarian goals and objectives, it has been the case that the targets set for the actualization of the goals which were in the years between 2010-’15 have not been fully met.
Further, the global economic crisis of 2008 has dealt a blow to the funding of the MDGs by the members and the corporates as well. This has meant that the actualization of the humanitarian objectives has been postponed or left to a future date when the initial aims were to ensure that the targets would be met by 2015. Of course, this does not meant that no work has been done as is evident in the way several countries in Africa have benefited immensely because of the largesse showered on them by the Middle Eastern countries and China among others.
Though there are many who point to the fact that the funding from these countries was out of a motive for commercial interactions with these African countries, the fact remains that the practice of CSR is not entirely devoid of commercial considerations.
Indeed, CSR works best when the corporates are incentivized to merge social and environmental responsibility with commerce.
Further, the actualization of some MDGs related to provision of internet access, broadband, and communication facilities to the needy, and goals regarding education especially of girls are objectives that have been largely met. This has been done from a humanitarian point of view as well as the fact that such goals help the corporates in building and nurturing the workforce of the future. Therefore, the MDGs represent a significant step towards a better and just world and though there have been setbacks, the overall aims and objectives have remained in place meaning that both the member countries and the corporates in those countries have contributed to the effort.
Apart from this, as is usually the case when the UN sets humanitarian objectives, the idea is for the richer countries and the large corporations to contribute more and hence, the actualization of the MDGs must be viewed in this perspective. Finally, the point needs to be made that the actualization of the MDGs represents a small step for the recipients in their quest to attain living standards on par with the developed countries of the world.
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