Technology 'disrupting' traditional aid model — Accenture

Development in the next decade will be very different from the last 50 years, with official development assistance likely decreasing as an overall proportion of the mix, and the private sector stepping in to fill that void.

The catalyst is technology, which is “disrupting” traditional aid thinking, according to Gib Bulloch, executive director of development partnerships for Accenture, who sat down with Devex Partner and Global Head for Membership and Alliances Alan Robbins for an exclusive interview at the European Development Days in Brussels.

“Fundamentally, technology is going to enable things to be done in a different way, it’s going to allow innovations to take place, problems to be solved in new ways that weren’t possible five years ago,” he said.

Bulloch predicted that in the post-2015 setting, the role of business in development is going to change from creating jobs and paying taxes to “actually solving problems … like education, health, nutrition … that are … market opportunities in disguise.”

Click on the above video for more insights from the Accenture executive on the evolution of corporate social responsibility and how the most exciting innovations in the future will probably be South-North and not the opposite, as has been mostly the case until now.

Devex was at the European Development Days 2013. Check out our coverage of Europe’s leading global development event of the year.