Overview and recommendations

These chapters have investigated ways in which PF can potentially affect, both positively and negatively, key social and environmental concerns. Before we move to summarize the findings and conclude with a list of recommendations, it is useful to place the earlier arguments in the context of the recent financial crisis; a crisis which throws into relief several of the major concerns raised in the book. A recent report by UNCTAD on the impact of the crisis on investment strategies indicates that most transnational corporations surveyed ‘are still grappling with the short-term impacts of the crisis, [though] a sizable majority expect the business environment to improve substantially by 2012.’ One of the direct effects of the crisis is that many companies have shifted their geographical priorities towards developing and transition countries.