Institute for Economics and Peace

Public Policy for Conflict-Sensitive Business

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:41:54 +0000

Every conflict is unique. There is no universal recipe to avoid stepping into the “conflict-poverty trap”. Ultimately, peace and successful development depend on societal will and effective governance. Both must come from within. We may not have the knowledge or means to predict exactly how business can contribute to sustainable peace in a particular environment. But we do know that a wider application of conflict-sensitive business practices and a greater awareness among investors who use their leverage in a positive way can go a long way. We also know that supporting like-minded actors on
the ground, building capacities, and providing tools and resources are our best chances to ensure that business is equipped to address the impacts of its activities in conflict environments.

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Public Policy for Conflict-Sensitive Business

Author

Virginia Haufler, Karen Ballentine

Date

April 2005

Organisation

UN Global Compact

Categories

Peacebuilding

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Peace through Commerce

Rebuilding Business and Investment in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:20:31 +0000

Sierra Leone’s devastating 11-year civil war destroyed much of its infrastructure, and left its economy in tatters. In 2004, two years after the end of the war, Sierra Leone asked the Investment Climate Advisory Services of the World Bank Group to help create a better business and investment climate that would lay a foundation for the country’s future economic growth.Answering the call, the World Bank Group’s Investment Climate (IC) Advisory Services partnered with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) to design a program to help Sierra Leone improve its business climate, encourage job creation, and spur investment.The result of this partnership was the Removing Administrative Barriers to Investment (RABI) Program, which ran from 2004 to 2010. RABI pioneered a collaborative approach by working closely with the government, local institutions and the private sector to implement a comprehensive, integrated agenda that focused on reforms in four key areas.

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Rebuilding Business and Investment in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone

Author

World Bank

Date

February 2011

Organisation

IFC

Categories

Post-Conflict Reconstruction

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Peace through Commerce

Rebuilding the trust-proposition between companies and society through Being Businessworthy

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:15:53 +0000

The Business for Peace Foundation believes that what is required is a stronger focus on the trust-proposition between business and society, and that companies must examine their activities with this ethical element in the foreground. Scattershot CSR activities that seek to show good intent, apart from a company’s other activities, are not enough. As will be shown, what may be required is a reorientation of the performance, processes and purpose of a business, to accord with universally recognized principles of ethical and responsible conduct.

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Rebuilding the trust-proposition between companies and society through Being Businessworthy

Author

Per L. Saxegaard

Date

2011

Organisation

Business for Peace

Categories

Positive Peace

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Regulating trans-ingur/i economic relations

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:09:33 +0000

This publication contains a collection of articles produced by Abkhaz and Georgian experts on the subject of the political and economic dividends – or losses – that could be brought about by a regulation of economic relations across the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict divide.The publication is an outcome of an action research process that began in 2009 and evolved more generally from International Alert’s Economy and Conflict work in the South Caucasus. This work aims to engage a variety of economic actors and other economic factors that impact on the peacebuilding process. In particular, it builds on research on the prospects for the free movement of people, goods and money across the conflict and non-conflict borders in the South Caucasus. The latter research was carried out by the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN) in the aftermath of August 2008. A variety of businesspeople who operate in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment of the private sector were surveyed. This research confirmed that there are business incentives for facilitating cross-Ingur/i economic activities

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Regulating trans-ingur/i economic relations

Author

Natalia Mirimanova, Oskari pentikainen, Irakli Khintba, Beslan Baratelia, Valeri Basaria, Emzar Jgerenaia, Irakli Sakandelidze

Date

July 2011

Organisation

International Alert

Categories

Economics of Peace

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Peace through Commerce

Profit Globally, Give Globally

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:01:45 +0000

American multinationals dominate the world stage, and their reach is growing. Ten years ago, almost none of Wal-Mart’s sales came from outside the United States; today, that figure is 14%. In the same period, GE’s foreign sales grew from 16% to 33%, and Procter & Gamble’s grew from under 40% to well over 50%. A host of U.S. companies in industries ranging from shoes to software have registered similarly impressive numbers. But the increased sales in foreign markets, and growing profits from overseas labor, have not been matched by proportionate increases in overseas philanthropy. Few U.S. multinationals allocate more than 10% of their giving to recipients outside the United States.

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Profit Globally, Give Globally

Author

John Quelch and Kasturi Rangan

Date

December 2003

Organisation

Harvard Business Review

Categories

Positive Peace

Related Courses

Corporate Social Responsibility

Private Sector Development in Conflict-Affected Environments

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:53:28 +0000

This publication is aimed at PSD practitioners and provides practical guidance on how to develop and evaluate PSD programming in conflict-affected environments (CAEs). It provides four main areas of guidance:Section 2 provides an overview of what PSD programming should seek to achieve in CAEs. It argues that, in the past PSD programming has seen its impact as limited only to the sphere of economic development. Not only does this significantly underestimate the potential benefit of PSD in conflict, it also is a potentially dangerous oversight. This section argues that PSD programmes should seek to maximise their beneficial impact across all four aspects of peace-building: on economic development; on governance; on building security, stability and trust; and on developing infrastructure. Furthermore this section argues the importance of PSD at all stages of the peace-building process.

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Private Sector Development in Conflict-Affected Environments

Author

Lisa Curtis, Peter Davis, Canan Gunduz, Andrew Ockenden, Thomas Pedrick, Tony Vaux, Joost Van Der Zwan

Date

October 2010

Organisation

The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development

Categories

Peacebuilding

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Peace through Commerce

Report of International Roundtable on Conflict Management and Corporate Culture in the Mining Industry

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:02:35 +0000

The mining sector is increasingly attuned to the need for more effective management of conflict with communities around project sites. Leading companies are working to develop the necessary tools to deliver on this goal, but there are no easy or one-size-fits-all approaches. Effective grievance mechanisms are an important part of the equation. But, where they exist, they do so within a much broader ‘ecosystem’ of factors internal to the company that can also have an impact on how well the company manages conflict. Experience has suggested these factors are likely to include, among others: senior management leadership, internal communications, staff training and incentive structures, the relative strength of the community relations function and the role and influence of the legal division. All are closely linked with corporate culture, whether as its source, symptom or both. Yet little has been done to examine these internal drivers and understand the impacts they can have on a company’s conflict management with its external stakeholders.

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Report of International Roundtable on Conflict Management and Corporate Culture in the Mining Industry

Author

Caroline Rees

Date

August 2009

Organisation

Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School

Categories

Conflict Prevention

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Operations

Responsible Finance: Putting Principles to Work

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:59:45 +0000

This paper examines emerging practice to support the basic premise of social performance management – that business processes must be aligned with mission and, ultimately, deliver on the premise of client benefit. It then describes funder roles in promoting responsible finance and closes with observations about future implementation challenges.

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Responsible Finance: Putting Principles to Work

Author

Katharine McKee, Estelle Lahaye, and Antonique Koning

Date

September, 2011

Organisation

CGAP

Categories

Positive Peace

Related Courses

Finance

Safe Water for All – Harnessing the Private Sector to Reach the Underserved

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:46:31 +0000

Access to safe drinking water is critical to human health and well-being. Providing safe,
reliable, piped water to every household would yield optimal health gains and contribute to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets for poverty reduction, nutrition, childhood survival, school attendance, gender equity, and environmental sustainability. The World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and others have a strong commitment to the MDGs, and to supporting incremental improvements in water supplies via alternative approaches targeting the provision of safe drinking water among vulnerable populations. Among those alternatives are decentralized safe water models, including distributed/vended water and point-of-use (POU) treatment.

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Safe Water for All – Harnessing the Private Sector to Reach the Underserved

Author

Joe Brown, Tom Outlaw, Thomas Clasen, Jianyong Wu, Mark D. Sobsey

Date

n/a

Organisation

IFC

Categories

Peacebuilding

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Business at the BOP

Some Economic Consequences of the Transition from Civil War to Peace

plysaght — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:06:22 +0000

Drawing on evidence from Africa – especially Ethiopia and Uganda – the authors of this volume draw conclusions about economic policy in the aftermath of civil war. A sample of conclusions follows. Civil wars differ from international wars. They are informal, often have no clear beginning and end, weaken rather than strengthen the authority of the state, and leave two unreconciled armies to be demobilized within one territory. Civil wars erode the institutions of civil society, leading to a decline in the stock of social capital, which takes some time to restore. Private investment and government revenue are slow to recover, and military expenditures are not easily reduced. As a result, there is little or no peace dividend in the short run.

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Some Economic Consequences of the Transition from Civil War to Peace

Author

Jean-Paul Azam, David Bevan, Paul Collier, Stefan Dercon, Jan Gzennixg, Sanjay Pradhan

Date

December 1994

Organisation

IFC

Categories

International Business and Economics

Categories

Peace through Commerce