Plan Finland urges companies to share responsibility on global development issues

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The development cooperation organisation Plan Finland is launching a new system alongside the traditional Third World foster child programmes, to allow companies to take responsibility for children, said Helena Ranta, chairman of the board of the Plan Finland Foundation at the Marina Congress Center in Helsinki on Tuesday.
      In the new model, companies are to be given a specially-tailored plan for taking social responsibility and at the same time strengthening the company's brand, and its competitiveness.
      Professor Ranta said that the emphasis in the aid organised by Plan is increasingly on the equal treatment of people.
      Wednesday's seminar on carrying responsibility, organised by Plan and Helsingin Sanomat, brought about 500 influential figures together to consider the prospects for global responsibility.
     
President Tarja Halonen largely agreed with Helena Ranta.
      In Halonen's view, the idea of aid work is not to give "friendly help" to those in need, but rather to recognise that people's human rights have been insufficiently implemented.
      Halonen said that the state administration, and even the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had noticed how important non-governmental organisations can be as partners.
      For her own part, Halonen promised to try to speed up the so-called Doha round this Wednesday in Geneva, where members of the World Trade Organisation again convene to ponder how trade barriers that oppress developing countries might be dismantled.
     
The main speaker at the seminar, Sir Bob Geldof, pointed out in his speech that problems linked with poverty are very complicated.
      "We are fixing the symptoms, and not the structures of poverty", complained the rock musician, who has been an advocate for the poor in Africa since 1984.
      Geldof expressed doubts about the Doha Round, comparing it to the famous Monty Python sketch involving a pet shop owner trying desperately to convince a customer that a parrot that he had bought was not dead. "Doha is the dead parrot", he said.
      While putting a greater priority on eradicating poverty than protecting human rights, Geldof insisted that he nevertheless supports human rights. However, he added that in travelling around the world he has learned that Western ideas of individual equality do not always take wind in different places.
      For instance, once in China when he said that all people are equal, a local person argued against him, noting that he had an aunt with only one leg, Geldof said.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Bob Geldof at Helsinki seminar: poverty can be eliminated only through trade (2.10.2007)

Links:
  Making a Difference: Bob Geldof speaks in Helsinki (video)

Helsingin Sanomat