Introduction:

Poverty is an extremely pertinent issue in today’s world. Poverty is a burning issue that needs to be acknowledged, accepted and alleviated. There has been a decrease in global poverty with global poverty being halved since 2000, but still there is a long way to go. Efforts are required to boost the incomes of the people who live below the poverty line, alleviate suffering and try to build the resilience of those individuals who are still living in acute poverty, especially those people living in sub-Saharan Arica. One should implement and expand social protection systems and try to mitigate risk management for those countries, which are disaster prone and are also the most impoverished countries.

Discussion:

The governments can take the following measures to alleviate poverty. The government can implement social protection plans to prevent and reduce poverty and inequality at every stage of the life of a person by giving them benefits for children, by giving benefits to mother with new- born babies, people who are physically challenged, elderly people and to those people who are poor and do not have any jobs. Studies showed that in the year 2016, only forty-five percent of the population of the world was protected by a social protection system. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that elderly people get their pensions on time regardless of where they live. The government should also provide disability benefits to people with severe disabilities, provide unemployment benefits to those who are unemployed and maternity benefits for expectant mothers. The government should try its best to build the resilience of the poor in order to end extreme poverty in the most afflicted countries of the world.

The government should ensure social protection for the destitute and the vulnerable people in society, ensure that the poor people get access to basic services, and support people who are harmed by natural disasters. Implementing social protection programs to the impoverished sections of society can help to alleviate poverty. The various social protection programs include social help such as money transfers, targeted food assistance, social insurance and labour market programs, including disability pensions, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, wage subsidies, skills training, among others. Disaster risk reduction is extremely important to ending poverty and fostering sustainable development. Disaster risk is higher in poor countries. The government should ensure that all people, particularly those who are poor and vulnerable have access to basic services, has equal rights to economic resources, has ownership and control over land and other types of property, natural resources, inheritance, new technology and microfinance. The government should also take steps to build the resilience of the poor and those people who are in vulnerable positions and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related catastrophic events and other social, economic and environmental disasters. The government should further ensure the mobilization of financial resources from a plethora of sources in order to provide means to developing countries and the countries that are least developed and should also implement programs and various policies to try to eliminate poverty absolutely. Governments should also create a sound framework of policy at the regional, national and international levels that is based on pro-poor and strategies that are gender sensitive in order to eradicate poverty. Thus the United Nations can adopt these rules in order to alleviate poverty.

The stakeholders of the firm are the owners or non-owners of the firm, owners of capital or owners of less concrete assets, as actors or those who are acted upon, as those people who have a voluntary or involuntary relationship with the firm, as contractors, right-holders or moral claimants, as people who take risks and influence others, as resource providers to the firm or dependants of the firm, and as legal principals to whom agent-managers bear a duty based on trust. Stakeholders are those who have a stake or claim in some aspects of the products of a company. Stakeholders are those people who have a stake or claim in some aspect of a company’s markets, operations, industry and outcomes. The stakeholders of a company are therefore its customers, employees, government agencies, investors, suppliers and communities. Stakeholders provide tangible and intangible resources that are essential to the success of a firm. Stakeholders can influence and are influenced by businesses. A stakeholder can therefore be defined as any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the organization’s achievements of its objectives. According to Edward Freeman, a stakeholder of an organization is any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of the objectives of an organization The primary stakeholders are the customers, shareholders, suppliers and employees of a firm. The primary stakeholders of a firm are those who continued association is necessary for a firm’s survival such as customers, employees, governments, communities and investors. The secondary stakeholders include the government, competitors, civil society and shareholders of a firm. The secondary stakeholders are not essential to a company’s survival. Media, special interest groups and trade associations are examples of secondary stakeholders. The relationships between the primary and secondary stakeholders in a firm are all correlated and dependent on each other. The managers of a firm thus pay attention to the people who are stated in the above positions.

The different forms of stakeholder theory include normative stakeholder theory which attempts to provide a reason why corporations should take into account interests of the stakeholder. The second form of stakeholder theory is the descriptive stakeholder theory that tries to ascertain whether and how corporations actually do take into account the interests of stakeholders. The third form of stakeholder theory is the instrumental stakeholder theory which attempts to answer the question of whether it is beneficial for the corporation to take into account the interests of the stakeholder. Primary stakeholders have a direct stake in the organization and its success while secondary stakeholders have a public or special interest stake in the organization that is more indirect.

The Principles for Responsible Management Education is an initiative supported by the United Nations which was founded in the year 2007 as a platform to promote awareness and raise the profile on sustainability in schools across the globe and to equip students who are studying business with the ability to deliver change tomorrow. It is a voluntary initiative with over six hundred and fifty signatories worldwide. The Principles for Responsible Management Education has become the largest organized relationship between the United Nations and management education institutes.

Students from business and management schools and other management institutions will play a significant role in shaping the mindsets of future leaders and can be drivers of corporate sustainability. The vision of the Principles for Responsible Management Education is to achieve the sustainable development goals through management education. The Principles for Responsible Management Education’s mission is to transform management and business education and try to develop future leaders who are extremely responsible.

The Principles for Responsible Management Education’s core principles include Purpose, Values, Method, Research, Partnership and Dialogue. Purpose states that the Principles for Responsible Management will develop the abilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an economy that is sustainable and inclusive. Values, states that the Principles for Responsible Management will incorporate into their academic activities the values of social responsibility that is global in nature. Methods refer to the fact that they will create educational framework, processes, materials and environment that leads to effective learning experiences for leadership that is responsible in nature. Research of the Principles for Responsible Management will include research about the roles, impact of the corporations in the creation of economic, social and environmental value. Partnership of the Principles for Responsible Management include the interaction with managers of business corporations in order to extend their knowledge about the challenges in environmental and social responsibilities and to jointly explore effective approaches to meeting these challenges. Dialogue of the Principles for Responsible Management include facilitation and supporting dialogue and debate among educators, business, students, government organizations, consumers, civil society organizations and other related groups, media and stakeholders on pertinent issues related to global sustainability and global social responsibility.

The Principle one of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education that includes Purpose, is of utmost importance. The purpose is to ensure students have the capability to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy, wherein students are taught not to waste any kind of resources since resources are precious and wastage of resources would only lead to resources not reaching the poor and the downtrodden sections of society. The Principle two of the UN Principle for Responsible Marketing Management Education that includes Values ensures that students develop social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact. It is of paramount importance that students learn to have values and develop compassion towards the poor and destitute thereby becoming better individuals, better human beings. The Principle three of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education, i.e. Method, will ensure the creation of educational frameworks for students so that they learn about poverty, learn about what causes poverty and learn how they can alleviate poverty. The Principle four of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education is Research, which will ensure that students develop an understanding about the role and the impact of creating an organization that focuses on social, environmental and economical aspects. The Principle five of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education is Partnership, which ensures that students are able to understand the importance of collaboration, of collaborating with other business organizations to address the various issues of sustainability and global social responsibility. The Principle six of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education in Research is Dialogue that ensures that there is a dialogue between educators, business, students, government, media, consumer, civil society organizations and other groups and stakeholders on issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.

The social responsibility of stakeholders is an organization’s obligation to maximize its positive impact on stakeholders and minimize its negative impact. The four levels of social responsibility include economic, ethical, legal and philanthropic. From the perspective of social responsibility, business ethics embodies standards, rules, norms and expectations that reflect concerns of major stakeholder. From the perspective of social responsibility, business ethics embody norms, standards, expectations that reflect concerns of major stakeholders. Social responsibility is associated with increased employee commitment, customer loyalty and increased profits. Social responsibility is very important and the first way corporations can achieve the task of alleviating poverty is by instilling the right values in students and other people. Incorporating the right values in academics and academic activities will ensure that students develop the right values and grow up to become good human beings and adopt a global social responsibility as portrayed in the United Nations Global Compact and help to alleviate poverty from this world. Incorporating the right values in individuals is extremely essential and pertinent in order to develop a sense of compassion for others, and for humanity as a whole, to develop a charitable nature so that one learns to help the poor and the destitute in whichever way they can. Students can be taught the value of education and how it helps a person to become a good human being and also how education helps to alleviate poverty by helping one to secure employment. Students who have the right values embedded in them will grow up to teach others the value of education and how it ensures employment thereby helping to alleviate poverty.

The second recommendation by which corporations can achieve their goals is through partnerships and collaborations. Corporations can come together and collaborate with each other and take remedial steps to eliminate poverty. Corporations can donate various resources to the poor and destitute as part of their corporate social responsibility. Corporations can also address generic social impacts through good corporate citizenship. If there is an overall growth in economy, then poverty can be curtailed. The industrial revolution led to a high growth in economy thereby eliminating high levels of poverty which, led to what is now known as the developed countries. Poverty can be curtailed by giving financial services such as savings to the poor and the destitute through mobile banking. Alleviation of poverty also include the improvement of living conditions of the poor. Illiteracy or lack of education is one of the major causes of poverty and companies can allot money for spreading education among the underprivileged sections of society as part of their corporate social responsibility. A root cause of poverty among the underprivileged section of society is the lack of access to resources and markets. Companies can address this issue by providing training in skills to the underprivileged sections of society. Skills training help people to qualify for jobs thereby bringing in revenue and alleviating poverty from their lives. Providing financial resources to the poor communities can help them set up cooperatives thereby helping them to come out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

A bank can be established to give microloans to the poor people so that they are able to start an enterprise or a small business. People who are poor may not qualify for bank loans from conventional banks as they lack the collateral that is needed, lack a steady employment and a credit history that is verified. Due to this, they may be forced to borrow money from moneylenders who charge a high rate of interest that will take away a large part of their salary. Microloans on the other hand are short-term loans with repayment schedules that are flexible. Another means by which companies can alleviate poverty is by providing women with opportunities so that they can become financially independent.

The four part model of corporate social responsibility include philanthropic responsibilities as desired by society, ethical responsibilities that are expected by society, legal responsibilities required by society and economic responsibilities required by society. The three components of sustainability also known as Triple Bottom Line reporting include economic, social and environmental sustainability. One can also protect the property rights of the poor thereby alleviating poverty.

Conclusion

To conclude, one can say that companies can help to alleviate poverty from society. Companies can donate a substantial part of their profits to charitable causes thereby curtailing poverty. They can also reduce the prices of their goods and services so that the poor and the destitute can afford to buy their products and avail their services. Companies can also employ more staff thereby helping to reduce unemployment. Companies can recruit local people from the economies they are operating in like Coca Cola. Companies can also increase the salary of their employees or provide them with the required training and learning skills. Prioritizing staff development can also help to alleviate poverty

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