By Catherine Cheney for Devex.

You won’t hear a lot of support for “socially responsible outsourcing” on the U.S. presidential campaign trail, but it could be a major force in global poverty reduction.

Companies in California’s tech-friendly Bay Area need people who can do digital work. That demand has given rise to more organizations using technology to connect people in developing countries with employment opportunities. In “socially responsible outsourcing,” some see an opportunity for the private sector to help direct a $300 billion outsourcing industry toward global poverty reduction goals.

Ensuring basic compliance with international labor laws is the first step, but that’s table stakes now, and that’s what people are expected to do as a minimum.

“This is the future of work,” said Radha Basu, the founder of iMerit, a computing company that does what it calls “global smartsourcing” to transform lives through digital work. By training and employing rural youth and women, iMerit aims to fill a void in the $100 billion Indian information technology industry. “Some of the most important skills today are in social media and mobile and analytics and cloud and ecommerce. It is why people have started looking to options like selling software online (with guides seen here: https://fastspring.com/solutions/selling-software-online/) or other materials and items. A large number of people are required to work with that large amount of data,” she continued. “If we can develop and really scale, working with other organizations globally so we become more of a catalyst, then you have created a digital workforce of young men and women who are using this to get out of poverty.”