The HIV episode is one such example, which he elaborately describes in the book. The task brought together a network of like-minded and farsighted businesses, which lent a hand by focusing on their core competencies, and solving one part of the puzzle of extreme poverty in the Millennium Villages throughout Africa, as follows: “Yara for fertiliser; Monsanto for high-yield seeds; Sumitomo Chemical for anti-malarial bed nets; KPMG for financial expertise; General Electric for surgical equipment; Ericsson for mobile phone and Internet connectivity; Novartis for malaria medicines; Becton, Dickinson for medical supplies and diagnostics. The list is growing.”

The first Millennium Village was launched in 2004 in Sauri, Kenya, as an integrated development initiative, informs http://allafrica.com. “Now there are villages in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, affecting more than 4,00,000 people.”

Millennium Villages is an integrated, community-driven strategy of Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation co-founded by the Sachs and Ray Chambers, with a mission to ending extreme poverty by 2025. Sachs advises the United Nations on the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), the eight-point action plan encompassing food, education, health, environment, and so on.

The overriding job of business is to make money for the owners, but that in no way precludes an active role for business in solving non-market problems, such as access to HIV medicines, Sachs writes, in a section on CSR (corporate social responsibility). Ignoring the non-market side can risk the very success of companies, he cautions.

An interesting quote in the book is of a businessman who captures the situation aptly, thus: “Either we’re at the table on these issues, or we’re on the menu!” All of us want to work in institutions that are part of the solution, not part of the problem, emphasises Sachs. He cites the case of Merck Pharmaceuticals, which cut its prices to a no-profit basis for the poor countries and found that its employees responded with enormous pride and enthusiasm.

Despite acrimonious debate on several CSR issues, it is possible to find workable solutions, Sachs assures, in the interests of all parties — “solutions that constructively engage the world’s major companies, respect their fundamental position as profit-making rather than charitable entities, and call for goodwill and adequate public funding to enable public-private partnerships to work effectively on behalf of the poor.”

The author says: “Companies can play a huge role not only as providers of technology but also as customers of local output from impoverished regions.” When companies like Starbucks, Nike, or the Gap source from low-income communities, they are not creating poverty, as is sometimes alleged, but reducing it, reasons Sachs.

“Of course, this is only true if these companies abide by internationally recognised labour standards and human rights principles related to community rights, workers’ health, and so on.”

The worst abuse has come, and continues to come, from the extractive industries, especially hydrocarbons (oil and gas), precious gems, gold, and other sectors, bemoans Sachs. “Oil companies may complain about lawlessness in the Niger Delta, but we must be clear that many among them were themselves agents of lawlessness when they paid massive bribes to national authorities over the heads of impoverished and local communities, relentlessly cheated on contracts, records of shipments, costs, and other aspects that affected their taxes and production-sharing arrangements.”

A persuasive presentation.

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