Theme 1: The Role of Business in Advancing Peace Through Commerce

[Peace Through Commerce]

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A discussion moderated by Cindy Schipani, Professor of Business Law, Ross School of Business Visit Biographies for more about presenters

How can business contribute to sutainable peace?
In this session leaders from business and NGO institutions provide their understanding of the ways that commerce and peace link together. The presentations focus actual experiences of institutional leaders and empirical testing done of the relation of business and peace. The speakers range from groceries to tourism to technology to international development.

Presentations:
What do leading business and NGO leaders see as the contribution business can make to sustainable peace?
Watch the four videos and join the discussion with presenters below.

	Steve Killelea, Australian Entrepreneur and Philanthropist, Founder of Global Peace Index "The Compelling Case for Business to Embrace Peace"(6:41)			Walter Robb, President & Chief Operating Officer, Whole Foods Market "How We Do Business Matters: the Case for Conscious Capitalism"(5:34) Presentation slides Full Presentation Video

	Roger Dow President & CEO Travel Industry Association of America "Peace From The Perspective of the Tourism Industiry"(9:28)			John Sullivan Executive Director Center for International Private Enterprise "The Center For International Private Enterprse's Public-Private Partnerships and Peace"(8:37)

Resources

• Global Peace Index 2008 and GPI Country Rankings 2008
• CIPE Overseas Report CIPE Executive Director John Sullivan speaks with CNBC Pakistan about the importance of strong corporate citizenship within the modern business model.
  
• Walter Robb's presentation slides from "How We Do Business Matters: the Case for Conscious Capitalism," including Whole Foods stakeholder map (page 4).

Discussion: How can business contribute to sutainable peace?

1. Is asking business to contribute to peace an extension of corporate social responsiblity or is it something different?

2. Each speaker provides a concrete, positive example or set of examples where businesses have made a contribution to social harmony. Do you think the kinds of businesses and NGOs they represent in these industries can replicate what these organizations have done? Are there other busineses that you think could also play a leading role in promoting peace?

3. What impact, if any, do you think the recent global economic downturn will have on these efforts?

[Canan Gunduz]

I know this has been said several times already, but I would still like to add my thanks to the organisers, fantastic presenters, and the very insightful contributions from participants -

what is particularly exciting about this forum is that those who don't necessarily get many opportunities in real life to discuss these issues - development, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, and business communities, as well as hopefully others, are sharing some very different perspectives. Thanks to Rowan, Sean and Stephanie in particular for some spot-on comments.

A few things I'd like to add from a 'peace perspective' - what's clear from Steve's presentation, and Sean's early comments, is that a multitude of factors are needed to maintain peace, and as many factors contribute to the perpectuation of violence. Therefore, the business community needs to explore:
- how this multitude of factors impacts on their ability to go about their business (e.g., the presence or absence of security, participation in politics, access to justice, economic freedoms and opportunities)
- how, in turn, the way they go about their business may impact on all these factors, positively, or negatively.

So, when asking 'what can business do for peace, and what can peace do for business', the answers should always be multiple, and specific to each country and its context.

Finally, there's much work been done in the past on understanding what constitutes peace, and a lot of people now agree that 'peace is more than the absence of violence, or war.' So focusing purely on a cessation of armed hostilities, will be necessary, but not sufficient, for building peace - there are ways that different people in society experience violence that businesses can do something about - this has been called 'structural violence' - e.g. systematically excluding some groups from accessing their rights, or keeping them from enjoying economic opportunities.

These are also factors that businesses can consciously try to address, for example by looking at who they do business with, diversity in their workplace, who can access their services, and so on.

[Virginia Haufler]

Looking over the commentary so far, I am very impressed with the level of discussion. Thank you, all.

I think I'd like to go back to the issue of defining our terms, because I think the business role in peace varies a lot depending on what we are talking about. Stephanie made the clever distinction earlier between business NOT doing things that contribute to conflict in order to promote peace (and, as Susan points out, NOT deliberately fomenting conflict), and business DOING things to promote peace. I think it makes a real difference to talk about what business explicitly does and does not do. It takes different kinds of efforts to get business to end particular activities-- regulation, for instance--than it does to get them to do something more proactively.

We can also think of this in terms of direct versus indirect action. It strikes me that Sean pointed out that few companies explicitly engage in conflict prevention, and yet a lot of other comments indicated that the more philanthropic/ CSR activities they do in the form of promoting health and education have an indirect effect on peace. If we think this broadly about peace through commerce, however, we end up calling any and all positive side effects of business action as part of peace through commerce.

Finally, I'd just like to point out that there is an entire debate and discussion out there about the distinctions among conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, etc. Business may have a role in some of these and not others. As has been pointed out by a couple of people, do we really want business interests directly engaged in politics and diplomacy?

[Victoria Francis]

I have been doing work with a number of companies in the extractive industry over the past year helping them in their community engagement and "social investment" programs. I have been very heartened to see the number of companies that are highly conscious of their responsibilities to play a positive role in the countries/communities in which they operate. Because many of them are aware that they are not development experts (a lot of the employees are engineers), they have reached out to development consulting firms like mine to provide assistance in helping them implement better development practices for more sustainable outcomes.

On another note, I have recently read Shell's guidelines for example in applying a "conflict lens" to every operational decision that they make in order to evaluate it for whether that decision contributes to peace or to conflict. It is quite an impressive piece that they have put together - although the challenge of course lies in disseminating and implementing these guidelines/policies at the ground level.

[Sean Callaghan]

Thanks Victoria: it is always so helpful to discuss from practical experience rather than theory. It is indeed encouraging to hear about the initiatives of the extractive industry. And in particular of Shell's conflict lens - would iy be possible to get us any more info on that?

[Sean Callaghan]

Ok I have found the document online - I will post some extracts from it later today. The link to the document is: www.ipieca.org/activities/social/downloads/publications/conflict_gu...

[Stephanie Landers]

Your question is an important one. Do we want business interested directly engaged in politics and diplomacy? It is certainly risky (made clear by the ever-present example in history classes of the "military-industrial complex" contributing to the onset of war). But the truth is it already happens. Businesses have lobbyists to pressure government in a variety of ways. Businesses can harness this power and influence to facilitate discussion. Reading the article that Sean posted about CBM in South Africa, the conclusion (pg9) has specific examples worth noting:

"In situations of conflict where the parties did not even talk,
South African business (in its above mentioned collective form)
played the role of an ‘honest broker’. When small
business delegations with trusted and credible people could carry
indirect messages to and fro between the parties - to get some form
of communication started, business acted as informal honest
brokers. A slightly different situation was when business leaders
played the role of ‘shuttle diplomats’ and helped to
bring the Inkatha Freedom Party into the 1994 elections.

The managerial and organisational capacity of business opened the
doors for it to play a ‘secretariat’ or organisational
role in the 1991 peace process. This was also carried to a formal
role for business (and the rest of civil society) in the
implementing of the Peace Accord.

An unusual role for (even South African) business was when CBM
played a facilitating role to bring constitutional experts into a
non-threatening situation to consider and explore possibilities
around the powers of regions and the national government.
These possibilities were presented to the parties separately and
played a decisive role in the eventual consensus. "

It should be taken on a case-by-case basis, and perhaps not something around which to develop an entire peacebuilding strategy. However, it making us feel a bit wary does not mean we should write off such efforts when they start.

[Esteban Febres-Cordero]

Hello Everyone,
Going back to the question that Virginia presented at the end of her comment about business interests directly engaged with politics , I believe that this has to be addressed because government and politicians cannot intervene directly in the process of promoting peace through business. Government's role should be to facilitate the people with the necessary tools such as a better education, improve technology, among other things so that business do not exploit these people by sending them to sweat shops (or similar places), but working with them to promote a better environment of peace at the workplace which can then be carried onto each of the employees' homes.

But the question remains whether government is engaging with business interests. The answer is yes. In some developing countries, especially in Latin America, leaders are forcing national and foreign companies to be socially active, and that part of their profits should directly go to the less fortunate because it is the right thing to do and because there is a sense of moral responsability to do this. But since when does a person starts a company to do something more than make something of themselves and put food on their families' table. Government cannot force businesses to promote and sustain peace by threatening them and forcing them to give a share of their profits and their wealth to less fortunate or otherwise the government will take over the company by nationalizing it and kicking out foreign and local investors. The role of the government should be to promote and sustain peace through its people by improving the quality of lives, and only then will businesses be forced by their own managers, employees, etc. to contribute for sustainable peace.

[Stephanie Landers]

I'd like to draw attention to the UN Global Compact, another example of business interests aligning with "the goals of the international community."

The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary agent driving globalization, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere.

The ten principles are listed here:

The UNGC website has a section on "Issue Leadership." The issues are:

Human Rights
Labour Standards
Environment
Anti-Corruption
Partnerships for Development
Business and Peace
Financial Markets

It is encouraging, for our discussion, to see "Business and Peace" on the list! Many of the examples are likely about responsible investment, conflict impact assessment, and risk management. I have not found any highlighting cases where business(es) had more active involvement in peace negotiations, for instance. However, getting the topic on such lists and recognized as important is important in itself.

[Steve]

Stephanine the UN Global Compact does some very good work. We worked with them recently to frame some questions to their members regardinging peace. These questions were aimed at the "C" level within the corporations and there were three answers that were particularly interesting. 80% of respondents thought that the size of their markets increased with increasing peacefulness, 79% thought that their costs decreased with increasing peacefulness but only 13% know of any information that helped them in making decisions around peace. This points to the need for civil society to develop information, in terms that is relevant to their businesses, that can help them make informed decisions that match their gut feelings.

[Rowan E. Wagner]

Its nice to see several key ideas emerge. Sean bringing to the table about business's busy-ness influence that could be postive or negative in bringing about peace. I think this goes into the concept of positive busy-ness; realizing there are activities that higher opportunitity costs in a longer run in terms of destructive forces as developing social exclusion, overly structured societies and the waste of limited resources for short-term gain.

Stephanie's input on small business and politics is interesting. I; from the standpoint of small business owner - beleive that business must engage in the political process - for the sake of survivability. SME are part of the community - and are much more embedded in social fabric compared to MNCs -not matter what level of CSR they are attmepting - this is a double edged sword that could be used for positive or negative change - as some of the examples presented have shown.

Lastly I would to tow out a conceptual curve ball. Economics is not about money - its about resources - money is a convenient vehile of utility (stroing some determined value). all communities have resource basis that must be properly stewarded - for all members to benefit. To often we have promoted the idea that by having money you have value - every member has value in a community; it is up to leaders (business, political, community) to help the community understand and engage people in activities that create local wealth (along the lines that Adam Smith exposed in his writtings) that include the value that everyone can contribute (rights and responsibilites) and of stewardship - replenishing nature not for just for end consumption but becuse it has value - I believe that this will also help in the end product of peace -

[Stephanie Landers]

This is a very important point, Rowan. Local value and wealth is not just about injecting money into a community or helping it "grow" money.

A small example: The reason I need/want money is to purchase goods and services I need to ensure a good quality of life for my family. But if I can achieve the same end (i.e. obtain those resources) in other ways, that would be just as acceptable. An example would be helping villagers in an area isolated from local markets because of conflict grow home and/or community gardens. They will be able to feed their families even when they cannot travel to market to buy food or sell goods in exchange for money with which to buy food. If they can feed their families, they will be less likely to take up arms.

[Stephanie Landers]

Thanks, Steve. Civil society must indeed develop information "in business language" so that companies are able to see how they will benefit from contributing to peace and to enable them to develop contributions wisely.

Do you have any examples we can learn from where civil society and businesses connected in such an exchange of information? Civil society publishes reports frequently. But getting these reports to businesses, especially domestic ones, is challenging. There is definitely a gap there. Conferences and workshops help but often businesses are not well represented, and it is the businesses that the conference should seek to inform! Studies and reports are not useful if they are only shared amongst academics. Additionally, conferences and workshops are tremendous expenses, especially for SMEs and companies in developing countries. This eConference itself is one good example, and I hope participants will be surveyed so that we can know how well-represented businesses were. Any others?