As world leaders - and some high ranking government officials - meet for the World Economic Forum in Davos, a social justice organisation has raised questions over the wisdom of letting business leaders direct efforts to tackle the global problems created by business.

The Bill and Melinda gates Foundation - set up in 2000 by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife - is the largest charitable organisation in the world. The foundation specialises in funding health and agriculture programmes, and controls more development funding than any national government in the world.

However, according to pro-democracy social justice groups, the foundation’s considerable influence and deep pockets have allowed it to “Dangerously and unaccountably [distort] the direction of international development” in a way that could lead to more inequality and entrench corporate power, which is already concentrated in very few hands.

In its latest report, Gated Development, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum being  held in Davos, Switzerland, Global Justice Now raises concerns over the relationship between the foundation’s donations and Microsoft’s tax practices and its role in promoting controversial technologies, such as patented and Genetically Modified crops and synthetic fertilisers, which benefit large wealthy companies.

The campaigners behind the report say that this last point is serving to undermine existing sustainable, small-scale farming that is providing the vast majority of food security across the global South. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that small-scale farmers provide over 70 percent of the world’s food supply. The Organisation has claimed that smaller farmers have developed resilient and climate-adapted forms of agriculture, which are less damaging to biodiversity and the environment (and can tackle poverty, hunger and malnutrition).

In a recent policy document advocating on behalf of small-scale farmers, FAO warned that “The over-arching paradigm of economic growth, considered the highway to secure development, has left the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development behind.”

Polly Jones the head of campaigns and policy at Global Justice Now commented on Thursday, “The Gates Foundation has rapidly become the most influential actor in the world of global health and agricultural policies, but there’s no oversight or accountability in how that influence is managed. This concentration of power and influence is even more problematic when you consider that the philanthropic vision of the Gates Foundation seems to be largely based on the values of corporate America. The foundation is relentlessly promoting big business-based initiatives such as industrial agriculture, private health care and [private] education. But these are all potentially exacerbating the problems of poverty and lack of access to basic resources that the foundation is supposed to be alleviating.”

In turn, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has claimed the report misrepresents the organisation. Responding to the report’s findings, the Foundation said, “Governments are uniquely positioned to provide the leadership and resources necessary to address structural inequalities and ensure that the right solutions reach those most in need. The private sector has access to innovations – for example, in science, medicine and technology – that can save lives. And we believe that the role of philanthropy is to take risks where others can’t or won’t.”

The BMG Foundation claims that its work has contributed to progress in cutting extreme poverty and curtailing major health problems.

Nevertheless, Global Justice Now is just one of a growing number of groups critical of what it calls “philanthrocapitalism” - the application of business logic to charity work, which often results in large businesses making more money from vulnerable people or regions. The groups is calling for the foundation to be the subject of an independent international review and evaluation, which it suggests could be managed by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, though they stipulate that any such process should involve a transparent commissioning process and include the participation of people who are on the receiving end of BMG Foundation-funded projects.

The full report can be read here.