Business fails fight on poverty in Asia-Pacific
April 30th, 2007Australia’s businesses and their failure to join the fight against poverty in the Asia-Pacific region will cost it potentially huge markets and damage its reputation, said Tim Costello, the chief executive of World Vision Australia.
CORPORATE Australia’s failure to join the fight against poverty in the Asia-Pacific region will cost it potentially huge markets and damage its reputation, a leading aid activist says.
Tim Costello, the chief executive of World Vision Australia, said yesterday the “terrible ignorance and silence” among Australia’s corporate leaders about global poverty would be unthinkable in the US or Britain.
A report due to be released next week details the business case for Australian corporations joining the fight for poverty relief in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr Costello said a survey of chief executives of Australia’s 100 leading companies showed 20 of them had not heard of the United Nations’ millennium development goals, a plan agreed to by world leaders to substantially reduce global poverty by 2015.