Corporate Accountability

Multinational corporations exert a decisive impact on world trade. Two thirds of trade is carried out by multinational companies and their profits are often larger than the economies of the countries in which they work. The operating profit of UK mining company Anglo American far exceeds the GDP of Namibia, where it owns diamond and zinc operations.

Companies can be a force for good in developing countries, bringing investment, jobs and increasing government revenue through taxation. Yet all too often developing countries receive little financial benefit from multinationals but pay a high price in terms of workers' conditions, the impact on local communities and pollution of the environment.

Many important multinationals are UK based or listed on the London Stock Exchange and Scottish and UK investment houses own shares in these businesses. The UK government has a responsibility to ensure that UK companies abroad are acting responsibly and that their profits do not come at the expense of poor and vulnerable communities overseas.

- Edith Nawakwi, former Finance Minster of Zambia

SCIAF works to improve company operations on the ground as well as to ensure more effective corporate regulation by the UK government. Our focus is predominantly on companies involved in natural resources (e.g. minerals, oil and gas, timber, bio-fuels), both because the UK is home to some of the world’s biggest and most important extractive companies and because, if handled incorrectly, these industries can cause immense damage to communities in developing countries.

SCIAF also works on a range of other issues of concern to our international partners, including:

• Vulture funds – companies which buy up the debts of developing countries and then sue them for many times the original price. Read Vulture Funds: Feasting on Poverty.

• Copper mining in Zambia - huge profits are being made but are the people of Zambia benefitting? Read SCIAF's Undermining Development report.

• Impacts of oil, mining and logging - read the recommendations of members of civil society organisations to governments, companies, international financial institutions and the United Nations concerning the impacts of oil, mining and logging on development. CIDSE statement.

• HIV/AIDS & life-saving medicines - SCIAF urges developing country governments, the UK government and drug companies to do more to stem the pandemic and save lives. Read Testing Times.