I do find it remarkable how so many people find it remarkable that there is so much that business and governments can find to agree upon in terms of developing Africa and sustainable development generally.
In the sources I read, hardly a week goes by without someone -- policymaker or politician or practitioner -- speaking in sincere-but-excited terms about the scope for harnessing private initiative in the pursuit of public objectives.
Austerity, acknowledgment of shared interests and a twist of Asian-led competition in African investment (and development) modes has turned an ideal about finding avenues for greater public-private cooperation into an imperative for doing so.
At the same time that the public sector needs private capital and commitment, at least some parts of business and finance are feeling or finding a need to reach out for public sector endorsement, reassurance, legitimation and facilitation, especially when operating in more controversial settings or sectors.
I was fortunate to be in Oslo last week (congratulations to the fledgling Norway-Africa Business Association!). I was among hosts who think it only normal that their government take an interest in how Norwegian firms conduct themselves abroad. Yet they also seem to think it only normal that Nordic businesses operating in African settings be encouraged to help local governments build their regulatory and other capacities. Now there are many reasons to be very cautious about unduly close relations between business and government in weaker governance zones. But since many projects will go ahead anyway, and business will influence government officials anyway, it seems to make sense to attempt to structure this, keep it visible, find ways good business can help government build the environment that good business finds amenable to operating in...
Attracting good firms to risky places is hard enough as it is. Since others will fill the space, it seems sensible to be more flexible about firms (not just donors) helping to build government capacity. We must find policy frameworks that help us with what is acceptable and desirable, and what is inappropriate, in firms helping host governments with things like boosting the capacity of local regulators to regulate in a predictable, purposeful way. In such relationships lie many points to leverage for more responsible business conduct, and higher governance standards by public officials.
This Thursday I'll be attending the Asia House workshop on private investment and development in Africa. The participants here are unremarkable in the sense that they see it as entirely appropriate to explore business-to-business cooperation in taking up the supporting tools that governments provide to facilitate 'larger and responsible' investment in Africa (see here).
For those interested in tangible progress on sustainable development goals there is much to celebrate in the new pragmatism from governments (whether of the developing or donor variety) and the private sector (both corporates and financiers) about working together.
The imperative is to transform the rhetoric about public-private partnerships for African development into models and modes that are not removed from (or preferably that are designed to run with) commercial realities.
The ideal is that such partnerships maximise the space that exists for building-in incentives for more socially responsible and inclusive investment.
For my part, I don't tire of the term 'principled pragmatism', nor do I see why one should sigh at the oft-used term / concept 'win-win'. Where ideals and imperatives find common cause there is considerable scope for creating new norms of practice at the intersection of human development and economic growth and the business dimensions of building better societies.
It is probably most unfashionable to quote Cecil John Rhodes, but since there is so much to do, and so little done, it only makes sense to try and do much more together. Unremarkable, one would have thought.
Jo
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