Fragile Environments and The Private Sector

Armed conflict and post-conflict situations constitute severe constraints on economic life and present a hostile environment to business and investments. As the primary driver of economic development, the private sector’s ability to prosper is imperative to job creation and investments necessary for human security. The private sector, international and local, has the ability to contribute in at least two rather different ways: by conducting its core business and by actively promoting certain elements of peace-building.

Taking years of practical experience from private sector development in complex environments as point of departure, Sofia Svingby, a private sector development specialist at Stockholm University argue that through conscious engagement and active dialogue promotion business can and does take on an important role for both economic development and peace-building in fragile contexts.

While potentially highly profitable, fragile or complex environments present a multitude of challenges for an international company. According to Sofia Svingby, this risk-opportunity balance must be carefully managed to cater for long-term success. Weak formal institutions, opaque power structures, commercial and political interdependencies and ethnic tension are some examples of particular challenges of the fragile context any business company needs to navigate.

The private sector’s main contribution to developing economies and societies stems from its core activity of its ability to offer products and services meeting local demand, and the related effects on job creation and economic growth. Brian Ganson, Associate Professor at the Business School of Stellenbosch University stated that in their interaction with suppliers, consumers, employees and governments and institutions, companies may transfer know-how, promote peaceful tools of conflict management and good governance through their core business conduct.

Herein lie both the inherent challenge and opportunity. According to him a company’s ability to steer towards sustainably successful business models rather than shortsighted and exploitative practices is pivotal.

Brian Ganson, however, argued that in order to be successful, companies can not go about doing ‘business as usual’. In complex or fragile environments, operations and products need to contribute to a virtuous rather than vicious circle of economic and societal development. If implementing conflict sensitive approaches in strategies and operations, companies can facilitate economic development while also contributing to establishing essential conditions for peace-building.

Brian Ganson further noted that a context-sensitive governance model, including means of ensuring local compliance with the corporate code of conduct, is required, but key to implementing such approaches is leadership. Leaders’ ability to navigate complex environments which is harvesting opportunity and managing risk determines if a business can successfully provide benefit to stakeholders, employees and society. In order to do this, leaders need to incorporate an attitude of attentiveness to any aspects in the local context that may influence the company’s operations. According to Sofia Svingby, the key attribute of such an attitude is inquisitiveness, continuously striving to understand the environment in which the company operates. Joanna Buckley, development economists at Oxford Policy Management Consultancy on her part argued that this approach helps business leaders anticipate and manage the way the company influences the local context, positively or negatively. Moreover, and equally important, it supports the management’s grasp on how the local context, for instance its conflict dynamics, affects the company and its ability to meet the financial, reputational, legal, and other requirements placed on international firms.

Joanna Buckley explained that in addition to conducting business sustainably and responsibly, private sector actors such as individual companies, multinational or local, as well as organised business, may offer channels and methods for trust-building outside the traditional arenas. This potential can be manifested by a well-functioning labour market dialogue or improved interaction between private sector and policymakers. The ability of individual employers or that of business organisations to contribute to conflict resolution, either at the workplace level or in society at large, may be decisive in establishing a dialogue-centred rather than conflict-oriented interaction. The fact that companies often have an acute awareness of the challenges facing citizens in local communities is sometimes overlooked. Organised business on local and national level, meanwhile, can have an important role to play in holding governments and public institutions accountable. The achievements of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the Tunisian Quartet, clearly demonstrate how business and labour market parties, when engaged in broad cooperation, were able to provide an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. Jonas Borglin, a known Swedish private sector and industrial analyst argued that business should be viewed and view itself as a stakeholder in sustainable development, even though a company’s status as a commercial entity may render it difficult to engage in far-reaching development work as such. The interests, capacity and mandate of companies and business associations need to be acknowledged if business actors’ potential in building resilient, prosperous societies is to be efficiently utilised. According to Jonas Borglin, sustainable, responsible business practices and values are not complementary features of long-term successful business, but a prerequisite. As such, the core business and the way it is conducted is the major contribution of a company not only as a source of financing, innovation, job creation and growth, but through its impact on stability and governance issues, including anti-corruption, peace and security and the rule of law.