Private sector engagement: the new lazy?

Is there a chronic laziness among those who work on getting business more involved in pressing social issues?

Have we gone from largely neglecting the private sector as a development, peace and human rights actor (my 2015 book Regulating Business for Peace) to an opposite extreme, where one just adds 'engage business' and the agenda will take care of itself?

Moreover, in swinging to this position of often unreal, under-explored and under-theorised expectations, is there a tendency to avoid issues just when they become their most 'pointy' and practical?

What exactly is meant when we implore policymakers, civil society and others to 'engage' with business in meeting the sustainable development and corporate responsibility (etc) agenda?

The immediate prompt for this first blog for 2016 was my reaction to reviewing a draft article on engaging business in the prevention of mass atrocities. Like so many other participants in debates on the changing role and expectations of business in society, the author fell down (in my view) by glossing over things just as they become their most practical and important.

In that author's case, it was a repetitive, unhelpful and ultimately lazy tendency to exhort the private sector to 'contribute' to peacebuilding and conflict prevention -- but without spelling out what activities and approaches that might involve in practice (much less in specific contexts).

Now its all very well and good to invite constructive engagement by business actors (and encourage policymakers to facilitate this).

But what does it mean for a business to 'contribute' to the SDGs, to peace-making or peacebuilding, to human rights protection and promotion? What does it involve, what should they be doing more or less of, or do differently, with whom, and how? Where does the context matter so much that one cannot talk of 'engagement' or 'contribution' without couching it in the specifics of settings whose dynamics differ so much?

In a 2014 blog post I delivered a similar rant, suggesting (with apologies to EM Forster) that it is not enough to repeat the magic spell of 'engagement' as if by saying 'only connect' we will witness the flowering and flourishing of innovative, meaningful schemes and initiatives whereby business actors fulfil the roles now increasingly expected or hoped of them in relation to the sustainable development agenda.

That earlier rant is here.

Private sector engagement, partnerships for development etc are very hard. We seem afraid to be honest, as if merely repeating the exhortations to partner will do the trick. A less lazy approach that offers some concrete ideas rather than fluffy 'contributions' will help underpin the rhetoric with some more credible analysis -- and action.

Jo