Private Sector, Foundations and Mass Atrocity Prevention: Best Practices and the Way Ahead

Transcription

1 Private Sector, Foundations and Mass Atrocity Prevention: Best Practices and the Way Ahead Part of Deconstructing Mass Atrocities and Development : A series of seminars to mainstream mass atrocity prevention in development practices Tuesday, October 21 st, 2014 World Bank, Washington DC Report of the Panel On October 21 st, 2014, the Budapest Centre for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities hosted a session entitled Private Sector, Foundations and Mass Atrocities Prevention: Best Practice and the Way Ahead in the context of the Law, Justice and Development week: Financing and Implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda, within the framework of the Global Forum for Law, Justice, and Development. This session is part of a broader project titled Deconstructing mass atrocities and Development, of which the first event was held at the World Bank in early April 2014, and focused on the role of bilateral and multilateral development agencies in the prevention of mass atrocities. The objective of the second session, which represented one further step in the exploration of the nexus between development and atrocity prevention, was to offer an opportunity for discussion to evaluate how the human and financial resources that the private sector and foundations already allocate to development activities could concur to broader efforts in mass atrocity prevention. Professor Enzo Maria Le Fevre Cervini, Director of Research and Cooperation at the Budapest Centre, introduced the session by invoking the second pillar of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), which states that the international community has a responsibility to assist states in their primary duty of protecting people from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Professor Le Fevre reiterated the importance of understanding that assistance under pillar two may take many forms, most of which may go under the broad umbrella of international cooperation for development. Underlining the powerful notion that there can be no security without development, and no development without security, Professor Le Fevre pointed to the fact that the community of international actors involved in development efforts not only includes states and intergovernmental organisation, but also and to a greater extent the private sector. The

2 Budapest Centre holds the view that private foundations are fundamental actors in the development sphere. The Budapest Centre argues, therefore, that socializing private donors into the mass atrocity prevention community is essential if the community as a whole is to struck the right balance between attention to tangible outcomes regarding future resource allocation and sufficient funding for less tangible yet fundamental operations. Equally important for the Budapest Centre is the inclusion of Multinational Companies (MNCs) and private enterprises among those actors that can legitimately contribute to the international architecture for prevention. These entities are often acting in vital and sometimes very sensitive spheres of society, and, in many cases, have significant relations and access to the highest echelons of political power, potentially enabling them to positively impact decision makers in a given country. MNCs may also have the potential to use their economic leverage to dissuade states from considering potentially dangerous policies. To that end, the Budapest Centre argues that the power and influence of MNCs should be harnessed in order to prevent the escalation of conflict situations and the occurrence of extreme crimes such as mass atrocities in a much more effective manner than has been attempted in the past. The effective implementation of the Responsibility to Protect can greatly benefit from the integration of these private actors in the RtoP community, which in turn may lead to the implementation of more efficient policies for the prevention of atrocities in the most risk prone environments and beyond. Following his opening speech, Professor Le Fevre gave the floor to Ms. Elise Ford, Director of Investments at Humanity United. Humanity United, in its capacity as a private foundation, stated Ford, has two essential tasks: one, which is aimed at preventing violent conflict, and another, which is aimed at ending human trafficking. Since its creation, Humanity United has engaged in various agendas related to the atrocity prevention field from investing directly in the United States genocide prevention task force, also focusing on the United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect norm. More recently, Humanity United has promoted research to explore the role of emerging powers in the prevention of atrocities in light of now evident shifts in the global political debate. Acknowledging that private foundations such as Humanity United have played a key-accompanying role to the field of atrocity prevention from the outset of the movement, Ford stressed that foundations themselves need to deploy their potential strengths more efficiently if they are to be a positive force in the atrocity prevention field. As stated by Ford, it is for this very reason that Humanity United has been going through a process of strategic review to address its role as a dynamic force in advancing the atrocity prevention agenda. Ford identified the continued disconnect between early warning and early action as one of the key challenges for the atrocity prevention community. The atrocity prevention field, somewhat similarly to the broader international community, is still operating in a reactive framework; considering how to respond to mass violence once atrocities are on the radar. Reflecting on the recent example of the violence in the Central African Republic, Ford stressed that foundations often lack mechanisms for early response, whereby small-scale interventions could be kick started as a result of early warning signs. To that end, Ford underlined the imperative for politically independent foundations such as Humanity United and others to make good use of their flexibility and strengthen their ability to respond quickly by providing seed funding as a form of early action. A second avenue highlighted by Ford that needs to be explored by foundations is looking at how they can play a role in building the constituency for support for early response, especially among governments. To that effect, some of the thinking that Humanity United has launched as a foundation involved in the atrocity prevention field has been on how to shift the culture of accountability even further upstream to a prevention agenda. A second challenge facing the atrocity prevention field that has been continually neglected is how to achieve sustainable impact. Ford noted that private foundations, such as Humanity United, have a core role to play in first identifying the key areas of intervention that really make a difference in

3 preventing atrocities in the longer term and, thereafter, committing resources to these areas. As such, private foundations may actually have a vital role to play in the atrocity prevention field as innovators, examining the key inhibitors of mass atrocities and, taking the example of political transition, exploring what good institutions for political transition would look like and what the role of civil society should be in these transitions. In closing, Ford noted that a third and related challenge facing the field of atrocity prevention and the organisations that comprise the community is their ability to learn and measure impact, assessing which strategies have succeeded, and how to extract those lessons learned and best practices to adapt institutional programming and approaches. In order to fulfil their potential role as catalytic innovators, Ford stressed the need for foundations to deliberately invest in learning. Ford noted however, that it is essential to complement the negative side of prevention (early warning and early action) with a positive work to study how peace works and reproduce it as broadly as possible. Ford pointed to the fact that atrocity prevention field must become more sensitised to the reasons underlining why certain societies are successfully avoiding falling into conflict and why, in violent contexts, certain regions or villages do not encounter killings and violence as was the case in the Central African Republic. Mr. Tim Brennan, Treasurer and CFO of the Unitarian Universalist Association joined the conversation after Ms. Ford by drawing upon the distinction between shareholders and shareowner as developed by Bob Monks -a leader in the corporate governance movement, which points to the necessity of not being solely focused on capital gains as a shareholder, but rather adopting the position of a shareowner who also takes into deep consideration the impact of any given investment. Defining socially responsible investing, therefore, as integrating your values into your investment activities, Brennan traced the beginnings of this movement towards socially responsible investing to faith groups who started to question the traditional distinction between investing and making money on the one hand and doing good work on the other. Faith groups started to look for what Brennan referred to as consistency between values and earnings, in addition to seeking ways to change the world. Brennan noted that this concept of socially responsible investing (SRI), otherwise known as Environmental, social and governmental investing (ESG), has now slowly made its way into the mainstream and the investment processes of major investment firms. This has led to the creation of an organisation sponsored by the UN called the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. Despite the commitments made by some corporations to integrate environmental, social, and governance issues into their investment processes, Brennan pointed to the fact that many are still wholly focused on capital gains. Brennan stressed, therefore, that socially responsible investors have two channels through which to change the world and assist in the prevention of mass atrocities: divestment (as the one seen in South Africa) and engagement with the companies they own to apply pressure to reconfigure their policies and practices. Brennan noted that this issue of engagement and the situation in Sudan, and in particular the violence in Darfur, came to a convergence at UUA when the association began engaging with Fidelity Investments through a series of letters and high level meetings regarding Fidelity s investment activities in Sudan. As a direct result of UUA s public engagement with Fidelity Investment, Eric Cohen, who had his portfolio of retirement assets invested in Fidelity, launched an organisation called Investors Against Genocide, which specifically targets mutual funds and puts pressure on these entities to put in place policies banning all investment in companies that are implicated in the support of genocide. Most recently, Investors Against Genocide issue a paper in 2013 entitled Genocide Free Investing: How and Why Investment Firms Should Avoid Ties to Genocide. Another group that has emerged to join this growing movement pushing for socially responsible investments is the Conflict Risk Network. This organisation conducts in depth research on companies operating in troubled spots and in areas where the risk of genocide and mass atrocities is high. As a result, the work of the Conflict Risk Network is allowing investors to make informed decisions relating to which companies should be eliminated from investment portfolios and which should be engaged with.

4 Brennan recognised that it would impossible to remove every company operating in troubled areas from an investment portfolio, as many are a force for good, particularly concerning job creation, but it is essential that private sector investors apply pressure on these companies to adopt policies and practices that reduce negative impact. In closing, Brennan pointed to the impact of the work of the UUA and others as part of this larger movement pushing for socially responsible investing, which has culminated in firstly raising awareness and questions among with wider public and secondly having a direct impact on policies and practices of major investment firms. Ms. Sally Smith, Managing Director of The Nexus Fund, a grantmaking fund that works to support the global community to end mass atrocities discussed the need within the atrocity prevention field for direct support to the efforts of civil society on the ground in at-risk and affected areas, in addition to the high-level advocacy that has been the primary focus of the atrocity prevention community. Smith underlined the fact that there is no better expert at preventing mass violence in a community than the people who live in the communities and, as a result, have an in depth knowledge of the context and varying actors. Smith stressed the need to provide these communities with not only better resources, but also with the necessary training and support to be better equipped to prevent the outbreak of mass violence. As part of the prevention agenda, therefore, Smith noted that prevention must include supporting civil society leaders and organizations, which can be done effectively by the private sector and private foundations as is one of the primary goals of The Nexus Fund. These actors have the potential to fill the gaps that governments are often unable or unwilling to fill on their own. This can be done, as highlighted by the work of The Nexus Funds itself, through the distribution of small grants to fund locally led efforts. Small grants, Smith said in closing, are often less bound by tight restrictions in the way that larger grants are and, moreover, projects spearheaded by the community are often more credible than projects that are driven by outside actors. Perhaps most importantly, a small grant by Western standards can often go a long way on the ground where each dollar counts. Mr. Paul Haible, Executive Director of the Peace Development Fund (PDF) joined the discussion and strongly confirmed the necessity and strength of working at the grassroots level to build communities resilient to discrimination and destructive violence. Central to the work of PDF and in particular regarding its community projects is the inclusion of people from the affected communities. Haible pointed to the fact that PDF does not make decisions about the people in communities, but rather makes decisions with them. To reiterate this point, Haible referred to the successful work PDF had done with indigenous communities at the grassroots level in the US and North America more generally, but also at the UN level; the ramifications of which have been globally significant particularly with the eventual emergence and adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This declaration, according to Haible, demonstrates the power of small-scale grassroots organising and what can be achieved through lowlevel, private funding. In closing, Mr. Haible also commented on the need for private entities to be socially responsible investors particularly given that in the US and North America, as is true around the world, many natural resources have been discovered on definable indigenous territories and so much of the struggle, as Haible noted, is linked back to the corporate world and over who is going to control and operate these resources. Professor Andrea Bartoli, Dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University and member of the Board of Trustees for the Budapest Centre concluded the session following a short yet intense debate with the attendees by saluting the Budapest Centre and others for their tireless efforts at engaging with states on the issue of atrocity prevention and for assisting states to learn about prevention strategies. Professor Bartoli noted that perhaps the secret to prevent mass atrocities in the future might begin internally between communities. Professor Bartoli stressed the need for foundations and donor organisations to clearly recognise the knock at the door from

5 communities seeking the necessary assistance that would make them truly resilient and connected. Professor Bartoli concluded by pointing to the fact that the most significant challenge facing the atrocity prevention field in the coming years will revolve around how to integrate prevention strategies at the local, national, regional, and international levels to prevent and mitigate the outbreak of mass atrocities. The challenge of how to create an environment in which these four levels work together will involve the inclusion of multiple actors working in the various political, socio-economic, and development spheres as proposed by the Budapest Centre. The Budapest Centre would like to use this report as a further occasion to thank the World Bank, the panellists, and the audience for making this event a success. For more information regarding Mass Atrocity Prevention and Development, please visit: development/