The Technology and Management Centre for Development (TMCD) at ODID this month hosted a workshop marking the half-way point of a major EU-funded project exploring the role of Multinational Enterprises in developing countries, MNEmerge.

The project is a collaboration between nine research institutions and universities and more than 20 participants from all the partner institutions attended the three-day event. The workshop offered an opportunity to exchange information on current progress, plan ahead towards the next landmarks, and contribute to the diffusion and dissemination of findings.

The ultimate goal of the MNEmerge project is to provide a novel perspective on the fight against global poverty. Essentially, the project seeks to determine whether MNEs could represent an alternative to aid, as a way of empowering communities to lift themselves out of poverty. The endeavour mirrors the agenda of the United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals, to which it hopes to make a contribution.

The project spans three continents, focussing on Brazil, India, and Ghana.

In Brazil, the objective is to study how rural communities could be electrified in a cost-effective manner. The research in Ghana focusses on assessing the impact of the operations of MNEs, by comparing Chinese and European companies and the different channels for diffusion of managerial knowledge. In India, the aim is to study how sanitation and hygiene could be enhanced in rural communities in order to improve people’s health and capacity for work.

At the half way point of the three-year project, all the teams based at the different institutions had preliminary results to discuss. However, more work is needed to finalise data collection and analysis. A new regional workshop has been planned for November in Brazil, and Ghana and India will host regional workshops later in 2016.

Read more about the project.