Global Markets and Daily Life at the Bottom of the Pyramid
A Livelihoods Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, Women's Empowerment, and Consumer Culture
By Linda Scott and Catherine Dolan
Partnered with CARE International
An integrated study that explores the impact of market-based interventions,
global corporations, and manufactured consumer goods on a selected
population of women in Bangladesh working alongside CARE International who
are providing funds, collaboration, and ground assistance.
Background to the research:
The growing trend towards corporate social responsibility and the need to
expand into markets beyond the traditional reach of Western brands-have
pushed multinational marketers to create ways of producing and delivering
global consumer goods that meet the needs of the poor. Today
companies-domestic and foreign, large-scale and small-are becoming key
players in global development, advancing innovative solutions to poverty,
disease and environmental degradation. At the same time, both NGOs and
government agencies, from UNICEF to the World Bank, want to tap the pockets
of the multinationals, but also capitalise on their expertise and products:
advertising tactics are now employed to encourage behaviours like
hand-washing and vaccinations among the poor; consumer goods are being
introduced as means to increase savings, support investment or improve
school attendance.
A persistent feature in this rush to put markets to work for the poor is a
focus on women.
Three factors explain this trend:
(1) the well-established finding that investing in females is the most
efficient way to raise a community economically;
(2) the practical truth that most goods marketed by the global consumer
culture are purchased and used by women, which allows for some surprising
alliances between marketing programmes and global imperatives;
(3) the significant number of women who, having risen to positions of
prominence in advanced nations, can now find, fund, and fuel efforts to help
less fortunate women.