IKEA’s $62m donation to famine victims should be celebrated

Swedish furniture giant’s pledge to Dadaab refugee camp is praiseworthy – but the company should seek to provide regional employment as well as emergency food supplies. As Ikea makes a historic pledge to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, the challenge now is to spend the money well. I am generally less interested in how much money companies give away than I am in how they make their money in the first place. That’s because in general the scale of companies’ philanthropic generosity is far outweighed by the positive impact they could have by thinking more deeply about how they do business. Inclusive business models that involve poor people as suppliers, distributors, customers or employees are now generally regarded in the development community as one of the most promising frontiers for engaging with business to address global poverty. Sometimes, though, philanthropy is at such a large scale, that it offers the potential to be life-changing. This week, Ikea — the world’s largest furniture chain — announced a mind-boggling $62m donation over the next three years through its foundation to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. This makes it the second biggest donor to the current crisis after the US. Ikea’s generosity should be celebrated and warmly welcomed — and serve as a wake up call to the world’s governments who have been appallingly slow in their response. The scale of the challenge in the region is vast: the UN estimates that 12.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. The famine in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people and put millions at risk. More…

News selected by Covalence | Country: Kenya | Company: IKEA | Source: The Guardian