SECOND STRATEGIC PARTNERS’ MEETING FEBRUARY, 9 FROM 8:15 AM – 12:30 PM - ENRIQUE V. IGLESIAS CONFERENCE CENTER
“ACHIEVING RESULTS” As the second of the IDB-hosted Strategic Partners Meetings takes place at the beginning of a new year and at the turn of a new decade, we propose a forwardlooking agenda on the theme of the results that market-based BOP strategies can deliver. Mixing strategic stock-taking with practical discussion on current issues, as always we hope the dialogue will be lively and will generate some concrete take-away actions and ideas that add value to all participants as well as to IDB.
How big a role can BOP strategies play in the ‘product mix’ of development banks, corporations and other diversified organizations in achieving their overall mission objectives?
How are such organizations developing BOP capabilities and what are the challenges of start-up, internal mainstreaming and external partnership?
How can BOP strategies be linked to other priority themes such as climate change mitigation/adaptation, disaster recovery or energy security?
How effective is the interplay between organizations that specialize solely in BOP, and those for whom BOP is just one strand of activity?
Taking stock: BOP as a means to an end? Development banks, corporations, investors, governments and other large organizations operating in Latin America and the Caribbean have inter-related but fundamentally different core mission objectives, ranging from poverty alleviation to shareholder value creation. However, many of them are now adopting market-based BOP strategies to achieve those objectives. For them, market-based BOP strategies are a relatively new addition to a much larger, longer-established and more mainstream portfolio of activities used by such organizations to help achieve their overall goals in the region. This is in contrast to organizations that specialize in BOP as their core objective and central activity. In this context, BOP initiatives are one of several ‘means to an end’. They may complement other activities and programs, or may compete with them internally for management attention and resources based on profile and value-for-money (especially in an economic climate of crisis recovery). This presents some key questions, which are also topical in the run up to the annual meeting of the IDB this spring:
We hope to explore these questions, draw some useful conclusions and provoke some new ideas in the first main session of the day, which will be introduced and moderated by Michael Fairbanks, co-founder of the S.E.VEN Fund, editor of the highly acclaimed book In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty, and advisor to world leaders ranging from the President of Rwanda to IDB’s own President. Measuring impact: is LAC properly positioned for socially-driven investment? Measuring the impact of market-based BOP strategies is notoriously difficult, but work on this challenge is becoming increasingly important for attracting and retaining support from the growing ranks of social investors. Experience suggests that BOP market participants in Latin America and the Caribbean are not as engaged in impact measurement efforts as their counterparts in other emerging market regions.