What is the role of business in the current development landscape? While it is clear that the private sector drives the economic growth that is critical for development, there is less clarity on how this role is best played, particularly in the context of global financial crisis.  

This meeting series brought together company executives, practitioners, policy researchers, government and civil society. A series of 9 meetings explored different approaches to private sector development, pushing the debate forward along three themes.

1. Businesses are shifting from ‘corporate social responsibility’ models to harnessing their core business activities for development impact. But what works, and what doesn’t? How is the impact measured?
2. How are developing country governments creating competitive markets for their domestic private sector, and how will the current crisis affect this?
3. For the world’s bottom billion struggling to engage effectively in global markets, what can be learned from innovation successes and failures, and what will work best through and beyond the crisis?

The aim was to share insights from cutting edge experience, facilitate comparisons and learning from contrasting efforts, and enable more effective private sector development.