At the start of this month, as another natural disaster was unfolding in the southern US, a group of executives from companies including Abbott Laboratories, Nestlé and Standard Chartered toured parts of southern Asia devastated by last year’s tsunami. Their mission was to find out how big business can best apply its skills to the long-term recovery of these regions through partnerships with people on the ground.

“This is a microcosm of the development issue,” says Robert Davies, who organised the trip as head of the International Business Leaders Forum, a charity with 15 years’ experience promoting corporate citizenship.