Last week, Ernesto Zedillo, the former Mexican president, and Paul Martin, an aspirant prime minister of Canada, announced at the UN in New York the creation of a UN Commission on the Private Sector and Development, aiming to remove obstacles to budding entrepreneurs in the developing world. Other commissioners include Carly Fiorina, president of Hewlett Packard, Anne Lauvergeon, president of Cogema (part of Areva), and Rajat Gupta, a senior partner with McKinsey. Mark Malloch Brown, head of the United Nations Development Programme, said the commission reflected the "next big thing" in third world development policy, an increasing engagement by the UN of private enterprise. Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, asserted: "We cannot reach [poverty reduction] goals without the support of the private sector."...In parallel, the UN claims its three-year-old "Global Compact", which brings together the UN, non-governmental organisations, labour and multinational companies, is beginning to spawn initiatives with real results. It cites the example of Shell, the international oil company, which has initiated solar energy and water projects with the Care and Oxfam charities in Ethiopia.