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Towards a Triple Return on Investment: Economic, Social and Environmental Development

There are an enormous variety of medicinal plants, worth millions of dollars, currently growing wild on hectares of land throughout Africa. The BDA Foundation would like to provide African farmers with the resources and knowledge they need to participate in the international markets for these plants and thereby contribute to the changing face of the African economy.

Within the perspective of sustainable development, the Foundation will train African entrepreneurs in the methods of industrial cultivation of medicinal plants. The African people are blessed with rich tropical forests and possess a significant portion of the world's biodiversity in medicinal plants. They must now become familiar with modern techniques in cultivation and harvesting, according to international standards, and be trained and prepared for launching successful export businesses.

Value is created when investors invest and organizations act to pursue their missions. Traditionally, we have thought of value as being either economic (created by for-profit companies) or social (created by nonprofit or Non-Governmental Organizations). The Blended Value concept is that all organizations, whether for-profit or not, create value that can be measured in economic, social, and environmental terms. Financing for the BDA mission (via market-rate financing, charitable donations, or a mix of the two) will generate all three forms of value simultaneously and inseparably. The outcome of all this activity is value creation and that value is itself non-divisible and, therefore, a blend of these three elements. While all value naturally consists of a blend, certain investors and organizations are intentionally attempting to create and maximize the impact of this value.

The key areas in which both investors and organizations are working to maximize this blended value are:
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Socially-responsible Business
• Socially-responsible Investing
• Strategic Philanthropy
• Sustainable Development

The BDA Foundation has been built on a blended value model. The end result of our ‘blend’ will be a sustainable industry in medicinal plants that will generate the sort of economic opportunity that allows for long-term development in Africa by Africans.

Reference for blended value: -Jed Emerson, www.blendedvalue.org (2007)