Business and philanthropy can go hand in hand

The Australian of the Year for 2011 is Simon McKeon, a high-flying investment banker who decided to work part-time to dedicate himself to social causes at home and abroad.

The Victorian businessman is a leading social entrepreneur who showed business and philanthropy could go hand in hand. “His lifelong efforts to support Australian and international charities have earned him great admiration and respect in the community,” the Australia Day Council said.

Mr McKeon hopes to spend the year inspiring others to help out the not-for-profit sector, particularly corporations which, he said, needed to do more to help the community. "There are many ways in which corporates nowadays can actually share their facilities, their expertise, their people and, of course, their people. Of course, they can do more."

McKeon is director of the Global Poverty Project, chairman of Business for Millennium Development and is involved with Red Dust Role Models, which works with remote indigenous communities.

A multiple sclerosis sufferer, he was the founding chairman of MS Research Australia. At one stage, he was paralyzed from the hip down and endured blindness for a period of time. He said it gave him the inspiration to keep fighting for what mattered.

Republicans propose big cuts in US international aid

American nonprofit lobbyists will have their hands full in the new Congress. House Republican leaders have already said they want to bring a big chunk of federal spending this year back to 2008 levels.

But now a group of conservative Republicans says that’s not enough. The Republican Study Committee, a bloc of more than 165 members, unveiled a proposal Thursday that would end a range of federal programs that benefit charities and their clients.

Among its proposals:

* Abolish the Agency for International Development.

Sharp Reversal on Microcredit

Microcredit was once extolled by world leaders as a powerful tool that could help eliminate poverty, through loans as small as $50 to cowherds, basket weavers and other poor people for starting or expanding businesses. But now microloans have prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries.

In December, the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheik Hasina Wazed, who had championed microloans alongside President Clinton at talks in Washington in 1997, turned her back on them. She said microlenders were “sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation,” and she ordered an investigation into Grameen Bank, which had pioneered microcredit and, with its founder, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

In India, until recently home to the world’s fastest-growing microcredit businesses, lending has slowed sharply since the state with the most microloans adopted a strict law restricting lending. In Nicaragua, Pakistan and Bolivia, activists and politicians have urged borrowers not to repay their loans.

The hostility toward microfinance is a sharp reversal from the praise and good will that politicians, social workers and bankers showered on the sector in the last decade. But as with other trumpeted development initiatives that have promised to lift hundreds of millions from poverty, microcredit has struggled to turn rhetoric into tangible success.

Done right, these loans have shown promise in allowing some borrowers to build sustainable livelihoods. But it has also become clear that the rapid growth of microcredit has made the loans much less effective. Most borrowers do not appear to be climbing out of poverty, and a sizable minority is getting trapped in a spiral of debt, according to studies and analysts.

NY Times

India's new rich prove reluctant philanthropists

An Indian billionaire, Azim Premji, who transformed a family-owned cooking oil firm into the software giant Wipro, announced earlier this month that he was giving two billion dollars to fund rural education.

The 100 wealthiest Indians have a net worth equal to 25 percent of India's GDP and Premji's donation -- by far the largest ever made by an individual -- was seen as a challenge to others in the ultra-rich club.

While charitable giving by the wealthy is widespread in countries like the United States, it is far less established in developing nations such as India and China.

Arpan Sheth, author of an overview of philanthropy in India, says "Should individuals in India, particularly the well off, be giving more? And can they afford to make more and larger donations? The answer to both questions is, 'Absolutely yes'."

But philanthropic activity has failed to keep pace, partly, Sheth believes, because the rapid accumulation of individual wealth is a still a relatively new phenomenon.

There is also a suspicion that charitable networks in India are not professionally managed and so donors fear their contributions "won't be put to good use or are at risk of being misappropriated," Seth said.

AFP

Gauging Impact of Gates Grants

Five years ago, Bill Gates made an extraordinary offer: he invited the world’s scientists to submit ideas for tackling the biggest problems in global health, including the lack of vaccines for AIDS and malaria, the fact that most vaccines must be kept refrigerated and be delivered by needles, the fact that many tropical crops like cassavas and bananas had little nutrition, and so on.

No idea was too radical, he said.

About 1,600 proposals came in, and the top 43 were so promising that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made $450 million in five-year grants — more than double what he originally planned to give.

Now the five years are up, and the foundation recently brought all the scientists to Seattle to assess the results and decide who will get further funding.

In an interview, Mr. Gates said, “We were naïve when we began.” He underestimated, he said, how long it takes to get a new product from the lab to clinical trials to low-cost manufacturing to acceptance in third-world countries.

Over all, he said: “On drawing attention to ways that lives might be saved through scientific advances, I’d give us an A. But I thought some would be saving lives by now, and it’ll be more like in 10 years from now.”

New York Times

Increased World Bank Pledge to Poor Nations

Officials meeting in Brussels this week agreed to contribute nearly $50 billion over the next three years to the World Bank fund dedicated to the globe's poorest countries.The 18 percent boost marked the arrival of some previous aid recipients as donors.

Britain, which topped the United States last year as the largest single donor, said it had promised $4.2 billion over the next three years. British officials said that represents a nearly 25 percent increase in local currency at a time when the government in London is pressing painful spending and benefits cuts on its citizens.

The fund, known as the International Development Association, supports health, education, food security and building programs through grants and long-term, interest-free loans to the world's 79 least-developed countries. The fund is replenished every three years at a donors conference. This year it marked a record for giving, with 51 countries agreeing to contribute.

The money, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, will translate into an estimated 200 million child immunizations, better health and water for tens of millions of people, training for millions of teachers, and the construction of nearly 50,000 miles of roads and train tracks.

Washington Post