LONDON (AlertNet) - Businesses should be encouraged to play a more active role in humanitarian aid efforts as they offer an
array of skills and a desire to help that have barely been tapped, a report by the World Economic Forum said.
Aid workers are having to respond to more frequent and increasingly complex emergencies as a result of the global recession, climate change and the pressure a growing population
is putting on natural resources, according to
href="http://www.international-alert.org/pdf/A_new_business_model_for_humanitarian_assistance_WEF_Nov09.pdf" target="new">the study by the Forum's council on humanitarian assistance, which was presented in London on Monday.
To cope with this workload, the aid sector needs a new "business model" and "to engage the private sector more fully, not just as a source of donations but also as a source of key skills and
technologies, during and after crises", the report said.
In December, John Holmes, the U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the humanitarian community should scale up its
partnership with private companies that can deliver aid "better and cheaper" and respect humanitarian principles.
The private sector already contributes free of charge to aid work in disasters. For example, pharmaceutical companies have been donating medicines for many years, while three of the
world's largest logistics firms - Agility, TNT and UPS - have together offered their services for relief in all of the major crises since 2008.
There are similar opportunities for businesses in other sectors as well: retailers could supply household goods and media companies could arrange communication with affected people, the study said.
"WANTING TO HELP"
More should also be made of private enterprises' genuine desire to help, said one of the report's authors, Simon Maxwell. Many in the aid community have long been suspicious of the motives of
private firms seeking to assist in relief efforts.
"The only reason business engages in anything philanthropic is because they see a long-term profit in it - I don't buy that," he told an audience of aid workers, academics and
journalists.
"In the particular case of humanitarian disasters ... an awful lot of it is simply wanting to help because people are affected by what they see on television."
Businesses also engage in philanthropy, he added, because it helps their relations with local people and improves their chances of attracting bright graduates who tend to care whether
the company they are going to work for is socially responsible. It may also contribute to good relations with overseas officials
in charge of renewing or overseeing their licence to operate in a particular country, Maxwell said.
The challenge is to encourage the private sector to participate equally in "popular emergencies" such as the 2004 Asian tsunami and "unpopular emergencies" such as the humanitarian crisis in
Somalia, he added.
Another aim is to make sure businesses maintain their support in protracted crises once media attention has waned as well as in difficult or dangerous environments.
"When it's not making headlines, tax breaks for sustained engagement, for working in disaster prevention and so on may be one of the best things that could be done," the report's
co-author Dan Smith said.
The private sector can also help by investing responsibly to promote economic development in a country or a community so that it is better equipped to deal with a natural disaster or to
resolve conflicts, the report said.
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