Lodge believes that the World Development Corporation would be the ideal solution to conquer the existing problems of disunity among the global aid initiatives.
Lodge's perspective on the World Development Corporation is unique and a very intriguing idea. It appears that the weaknesses and strengths of these three organizations compliment each other, and therefore a union would make sense. However, this is not to say that Lodge's initiative is inevitable or fail-safe. The primary barrier to such an initiative is that there are differing philosophies in each of this group's approach. Lodge himself even admits that there are serious barriers to forming such a partnership. Bureaucracies in any shape or form are hard to change; this is because a ripple effect must occur on all levels of the organization for such a significant partnership to work. The history between multinationals, government agencies and NGOs is filled with dark periods and frustrated attempts at partnerships; therefore mutual suspicion is a constant barrier to fully initializing these changes. Large corporations view this partnership as having significant problems because it allows governmental agencies to dictate internal business policy and development ideology. It is still a strong mantra within multinationals that business and government should remain separate and very distant in function. Therefore, such a joint venture goes against the grain of fundamental business ideology and philosophical approaches to corporate development. Lodge explains that one of the fundamental barriers to the WDC is that government is viewed by many as the sole agent in the fulfillment of community needs. From the UN's perspective, poverty reduction should be the sole function of a global political mandate. NGOs in turn feel the biases and philosophical differences towards multinationals; the result of this conflict is that each side has ideological bridges to cross before an actual partnership could be formulated. At the same time however, such a partnership "makes too much sense to ignore." Lodge believes that there is a momentum swing towards the side of the WDC because the idea is too logical and inevitable to ignore forever.
Lodge believes that the...
A WDC board of directors with leadership from the most prestigious multinationals can develop a cohesive business development strategy. Using a combination of these resources, a sustainable economic structure could be developed that would lead to both profit for corporations and greater economic growth within the poverty region. Another important aspect of the WDC is that it would be able to target specific initiatives that have the most potential for success. Instead of diversifying resources across several projects, the ability to collectively work on unified efforts makes the chances for success much greater. With an integrated organization, interactions between different support organizations such as the World Bank and UNDP along with local business partners would be able to work at a much closer level than any one organization alone. Finally, having such an organization would be extremely helpful towards the cause of promoting greater research and learning about how business development can impact poverty reduction throughout the world. With all three of these benefits it seems that Lodge believes the WDC is inevitable and that in general the world is moving towards that direction.
Lodge's book gives an articulate and persuasive account of the world poverty situation and how we can utilize all available resources to achieve poverty reduction. The development of Asia as an entire region exemplifies Lodge's beliefs on poverty reduction. In specific that the only way to create sustainable change is integrate business development at the critical infrastructure point, which means developing both small and medium sized domestic companies. Having such businesses provides jobs, stable incomes and personal motivation for those individuals to work harder and become more educated to move up in their respective positions. Everything starts from the infrastructure development. I found this book to be extremely persuasive, and it is apparent that the world is moving in that general direction. Although there are global barriers even now to see this in action, it is the logical extension of our ambitions to end global poverty.
