We’d Better Change Our Act!

-by Luk N. Van Wassenhove, 17 August 2010-

The humanitarian context is rapidly changing but the humanitarian ecosystem is plagued by what we call the knowledge-doing gap. We see it coming but apparently we are incapable to act. It just seems too hard to change our ways.

Who Do We Think We’re Fooling?
Everyone agrees the humanitarian case load is increasing rapidly while funds are drying up. A child can tell that this means we are driving ourselves into a wall. Our world is critically inter- dependent and highly non-linear, but we keep acting as if action-outcome links are simple and linear. We believe we shall be able to fix things when they arise. Well, we won’t. We shall increasingly be victims of complex feed-forward and feedback loops in dynamic systems, i.e. we shall always run behind the facts if we do not accept this simple reality and start acting accordingly. For instance, food prices will again increase dramatically because of the drought in Europe. This will put even more people in a life-threatening situation in completely different parts of the world.

These waves of crises will persist. They will even intensify and their effects will be more abrupt and unexpected. We need a dynamic and integrated approach to risk and scenario analysis in order to anticipate major disequilibria and to adequately prepare for timely response.

To read the rest of the article, please go to: http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/centres/isic/humanitarian/BetterChangeOurAct.cfm

To go to the Humanitarian Research Group website, please click here:  http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/centres/isic/humanitarian

Let's Hear Those Ideas

In America and Britain governments hope that a partnership with “social entrepreneurs” can solve some of society’s most intractable problems

---- The Economist, 12 August 2010 ---- 

POLICYMAKERS on both sides of the Atlantic are keen on a new approach to alleviating society’s troubles. On July 22nd Barack Obama’s administration listed the first 11 investments by its new Social Innovation Fund (SIF). About $50m of public money, more than matched by $74m from philanthropic foundations, will be given to some of America’s most successful non-profit organisations, in order to expand their work in health care, in creating jobs and in supporting young people.

Although the SIF accounts for a tiny fraction of the federal budget, the fund embodies anapproach that the administration plans to spread throughout government. The fund is one of several efforts to promote new partnerships of government, private capital, social entrepreneurs and the public, pushed by the White House’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (OSICP), which Mr Obama created soon after taking office. These initiatives include another fund, i3 (for “investing in innovation”), in the Department of Education and cash prizes for novel answers to social problems.

Three days earlier David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, gave a speech in Liverpool outlining his vision of a “Big Society”. At its heart, he sees a similar partnership to Mr Obama’s. A Big Society Bank will “help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups through intermediaries”, which sounds very like the task of the SIF. The government, said Mr Cameron, urgently needs to “open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies so we get more innovation, diversity and responsiveness to public need” and to “create communities with oomph”.

A New Name for Brains and Money
“Social innovation” is the increasingly common shorthand for this approach to public-privatepartnerships. It differs from the fashion in the past couple of decades for contracting out the delivery of public services to businesses and non-profit groups in order to cut costs, in that it aims to do more than save a few dollars or pounds—although that is part of its attraction. The idea is to transform the way public services are provided, by tapping the ingenuity of people in the private sector, especially social entrepreneurs.

A social entrepreneur is, in essence, someone who develops an innovative answer to a social problem (for instance, a business model for helping to tackle poverty). A decade ago the term was scarcely heard; today everyone from London to Lagos wants to be one. Social-entrepreneurship conferences are invariably the best attended events for students at leading business schools.

To read the rest of this article, please go to: http://www.economist.com/node/16789766?story_id=16789766

Can CSR show us the money?

---- by Mark Lee Hunter and Luk Van Wassenhove ----

Our case study on Hayleys PLC addresses a gap in the literature on corporate social responsibility: namely, it is very hard to determine the true costs and benefits of CSR for a firm. We wanted to see not only if Hayleys -- the biggest multinational in Sri Lanka – was serious about CSR, but also how it was trying to make it work.

For INSEAD, building knowledge about CSR in practice is urgent. A big question, which has become even bigger in the current crisis, is whether business can or should create a prosperous society, as well as prosperous firms. (To put it another way, is there more to business success than shareholder value? Some 40 years after Milton Friedman said no, the debate is still wide open.) At the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre, we see a growing demand among MBAs and executives for strategies that can achieve this goal. Read more on: http://knowledge.insead.edu/social-innovation-hayleys-insead-100512.cfm

First published on INSEAD Knowledge: May 12, 2010

Last updated: May 12, 2010

MH/KC 05/10

WWF launches fantasy corporate social responsibility game

----By Jessica Shankleman, BusinessGreen, 28 May 2010----

Environmental charity introduces green business game to help company executives develop low-carbon business strategies

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) has joined forces with financial services provider Allianz to launch an online game that allows players to slip into the role of a chief executive and work out business strategies to reduce carbon emissions while still growing the bottom line.

Players aim to identify which investments, made at a particular time, will set the course for a profitable growth in the low-carbon economy of the future.

While the game, dubbed CEO2 is an environmental alternative to the popular football managing game Championship Manager, its developers say it has more serious implications for a low-carbon future.

“Politicians and businesses are hesitant when it comes to climate change, although according to the Report on Energy and Climate Policy in Europe… Europe especially could profit from climate protection if it sets the framework for middle- and long-term reductions of greenhouse gas emissions,” said the WWF in a statement.

CEO2 shows the varying impacts of business decisions in the chemical, automobile, utility and finance industries during the next 20 years, with players' success measured according to the development of the stock price and the carbon emissions.

The game was developed and implemented by the Berlin communications agency LGM Interactive.

AUC to become first university in the Middle East to join the UN global compact

The news was announced at the Corporate Sustainability Capacity Building Program, a recently launched program developed to respond to the need for the private sector in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia to not only understand what corporate sustainability means to their business, but also to acquire the skills necessary to implement sustainable business practices.

Haiti shows that Gulf states are not mere ‘funders’

The perception that GCC countries can only provide financial resources largely undermines their recent efforts to adapt their practices to international standards, and relegates them to a status of “funders” instead of empowering them to become global humanitarian actors. The financial and logistical support these countries can provide is critical for the reconstruction phase taking place currently. Though media coverage has been slowly decreasing, Haiti needs not only financial support, but also a commitment to rebuilding the devastated country.

CGAP, Deutsche Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and Grameen-Jameel announcing Islamic Microfinance Challenge 2010: Innovating Sustainable, Scalable, and Market-Driven Models

"We are seeking original Islamic microfinance business proposals which are profitable, sustainable, scalable, and Shariah-compliant. Finalists of this competition will be awarded US $100,000 in grant funds as well as need-based technical support to launch a pilot project of their proposed business idea."