Global Poverty Needs a Global Answer
March 13, 2006
by Cynthia D. Churchwell
HBS professor emeritus George C. Lodge’s idea of a World Development Corporation has been percolating for years—he wrote a seminal article on the proposal in Foreign Affairs in 2002 (reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge).
The WDC would be a for-profit organization that would create sustainable improvements in impoverished countries. Lodge advanced the ideas in a January 2006 two-part piece in YaleGlobal coauthored with economist Craig Wilson. The authors also have a book due in May, A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty: How Multinationals Can Help the Poor and Invigorate Their Own Legitimacy, to be published by Princeton University Press.
In this recent interview conducted by e-mail, Lodge is hopeful that the World Development Corporation will be formed. He explains why nonprofits aren’t the answer to ending poverty and asks that executives look beyond philanthropy to make lasting positive change.
Full Interview
Copyright © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College
