'Good business' in Africa: governance of corporate responsibility

What is more significant in determining the social, environmental or governance impact of larger businesses operating in Africa -- their host government or their home government?

 

During our mid-September conference (see here and previous post), in the Africa political economy discussion group, one delegate asked whether firms from any particular countries were notable for generally doing 'good' (socially responsible) business.

 

We often field questions seeking to define and unlock the formula, strategy, approach, style of firms from Brazil, Turkey, China and so on increasingly doing business in Africa -- questions which assume that such firms display distinct, recognisable attributes on the basis of their national origin, or even that it is possible to attribute a single nationality to many larger firms. Implicit in such questions is often a sense that firms 'from' some jurisdictions are likely to be better corporate citizens abroad than others. A previous post noted that such claims are intuitively appealing but often lack empirical backing -- see here.

 

In reacting to the conference question my first sense was to say that the origin or home of a firm may not be as important as the will and ability of the host government to encourage or ensure responsible investment activities.

 

My particular interest lies in fragile and conflict-affected states. Here, even if interested in promoting responsible business conduct or able to spare the capacity to do so, such governments may fear that placing demands on firms would make the proposition of investing too onerous: it is hard enough attracting responsible firms to risky places (even if many activities to mitigate social impact would also reduce political risks).

 

In weakly governed settings the significance of self-regulation and non-state (or external) sources of regulation increases. That is -- to address the conference question -- the weaker the host government's regulatory capacity, the more the home origin of a firm may matter in terms of whether it feels pressure or inclination to act responsibly.

 

In theory, self-regulation can obviate the need for a capable state across both mandatory (but not enforced) and voluntary activities. For voluntary commitments this is especially, but perhaps really only, where there is sufficient alignment with core business objectives. Transitioning these undertakings to something more formal and systematic generally takes more than goodwill on the part of a single firm or pressure from certain groupings.

 

As a very good, short, recent paper points out, the governance of corporate responsibility -- call it the regulation of self-regulation -- may ultimately depend on the powers of a regulatory state. These powers and the incentives for using them vary across investment-sending and investment-receiving states: the prospects for doing 'good' business in African settings will very often depend on very localised factors and is more complex than labelling certain countries better at being good.

 

Jo

'Africa Rising': enhancing public-private ties

It is easy to discern the coexistence across Africa of fast GDP growth rates alongside significant (and in places growing) deficits in infrastructure, service delivery and regulatory capacity.

 

This phenomenon not only prompts the question 'what counts as success?' in the current 'Africa Rising' debate, but also prompts reflection on ways in which business-government relations can be (appropriately) enhanced or reconfigured to ensure that economic growth is more sustained, inclusive and pro-developmental.

 

This week (18-20 Sept) sees our firm's annual 'Global Horizons' conference here in Oxford. One conference sponsor has elsewhere identified enhanced government-business ties as one of six macro trends shaping the business world into the future (see here).

 

The Africa panel is entitled 'Measuring Success' while the discussion groups on Africa follow the sub-theme 'Growth, Governance and Public Goods'. One topic we may be discussing in the Africa sessions is what political, policy and practical issues arise in relation to the private sector becoming more explicitly or directly involved not just in infrastructure development, but in institutional strengthening.

 

For instance, if the longer-term answer must lie in African governments' abilities to tax and spend/distribute more efficiently and fairly, is there a role for corporate tax-payers to assist in this regard? At first glance, no firm seeks to create a more robust tax-man; yet over time, some firms might come to see that improving host government capacity to deliver public goods might help reduce local expectations that firms will do so instead.

 

Meanwhile, blog readers will discern that I'm very much an advocate of exploring greater engagement by and with the private sector in pursuit of greater quality and accessibility of public goods in Africa, but some voices take this too far.

 

It is one thing to note that austerity on the part of donors -- along with self-interest or impatience on the private sector's part -- is leading to greater attention to the latter as a stakeholder in meeting development goals. It is another thing to simply substitute firms for donors when thinking of solutions to enduring developmental problems.

 

Yet this is what one sometimes hears from some of the more enthusiastic supporters of the private sector's developmental duties or role. On this view, donors' retreat is not a developmental problem in Africa because business will step in with funding and expertise; or, one only waves a magic wand called 'public-private partnerships' and all ills are solved.

 

This is unrealistic, even if donor austerity does provide multiple opportunities for re-thinking strategies for Africa's (self-) upliftment, and even if much of Africa's developmental challenge may lie more in better assessment, levying and use of tax on private sector activity than in aid disbursement. It is also unsatisfying, because for all the chorus on PPPs as a commercial and developmental panacea (and for all their undoubted potential as a concept), one seldom sees much precision on what form these should take for particular sectors or services. 'Enhancing ties' between business and government is appealing but also raises a host of questions about proper roles and relationships, ones that require unpacking.

 

Any transfer of focus from donors and/or governments onto the private sector is not in firms' interests; but it is not necessarily in the wider public interest either -- despite the untapped promise that undoubtedly exists for harnessing business more directly to poverty-reduction, environmental management, and inclusive growth.

 

Jo

 

Previous posts have noted (or advocated) growing attention to the actual or potential alignment of public goals with private sector interests in Africa's development: see recently this post which groups some of them.

African dimensions of the Snowden saga: technologies of trust

The African growth and development story that gets the most airtime -- alongside sometimes misplaced hype about urbanisation and the 'rising middle class' -- is the proliferation of mobile telecoms (and gradual greater internet penetration).

 

The trend is not new now but the scope for innovative, cheap and wide-ranging platforms and services still excites for-profit outfits (telecoms, internet and consumer firms, and financial service providers), as well as policymakers interested in how expanding access to mobile technology and new media sources can help promote more reachable, responsive, and responsible government.

 

Some of the most exciting potential lies at the intersection of public and private sectors and interests: the significant scope in Africa for collaborative schemes and financing models that match corporate capital and dynamism with the policy authority and objectives of major public institutions -- think for example of the World Bank's work with Google Africa on deploying 'MapMaker' and community/crowdsourcing mapping technology in support of monitoring public services, political events, or humanitarian and disaster response efforts, and other partnerships on improving public access to government online data.  

 

Yet through mid-2013 discussion of the mobile/internet story in Africa has continued in isolation from the 'Snowden revelations' about the extent of US and other government agency access to private communications data, and the extent of corporate cooperation with security agencies in that process. Discussion of the pro-social impact of new technologies often lacks consideration of the down- or dark-sides to that, and the balance of interests in the user-provider-regulator triangle especially in those African countries where democratic space is constrained.

 

This week's blogpost is prompted by a brief line I spotted in the latest 'Zambia Weekly' letter alleging that the Zambian government had obtained a new ability to intercept email correspondence.

 

As noted in previous posts (see the three grouped here), new technologies merely provide a medium -- in a sense they are neutral as to the use made of them. Thus while pro-democracy activists welcome greater internet and mobile penetration and more repressive regimes generally dread it, the latter are also able to use such technologies to their advantage. In some cases, this will create dilemmas for consumer-facing telecoms firms operating in such settings in Africa, as the previous posts discuss.

 

Survey and anecdotal evidence suggests high levels of trust and goodwill among African consumers towards mobile phone companies (and the services they provide). This could prove an interesting 'social capital' resource for all sorts of initiatives. Yet, again, caution is needed in assuming that a greater technological imprint in governance or political processes in Africa will necessarily benefit pro-democracy forces, or necessarily engender public faith in electoral or other systems.

 

Greater proliferation of e-governance and i-politics has potential but will not necessarily mean intangible transfers of power to citizens over governments. Last week I returned from post-election Zimbabwe, where much controversy surrounded an Israeli-owned firm's role in managing the electronic voter's roll: some of our Africa experts at Oxford Analytica have examined the impact of new e-registration and e-voting technologies, explaining to clients how these may not necessarily win the confidence of voters nor improve electoral integrity. Indeed they might have precisely the opposite effect.

 

There is more work to be done exploring the extent and potential utility of public trust in telecoms service providers in Africa and their relations with host governments (see a previous related post here). 

Jo
 

ps - the public's trust was a key theme of Oxford Analytica's most recent (Edition 2) free quarterly 'Business and Society Monitor' (available here) which discusses the work of in-house experts who have been following and explaining the global industry and governance implications of the Snowden/NSA issue.

The private sector's role in poverty-reduction, development and peace

Development policymakers and practitioners are discovering this thing called the private sector, while business leaders are becoming more fluent in developmental issues.

Many observers are cynical. Much remains at the level of rhetoric. Much of the interest is a by-product of development aid austerity. But although it matters what motivates various actors (and until history ends with some universal consensus about how best to develop peacefully, sustainably and equitably) this current trend of debate is overwhelmingly a good thing.

The theme of this week's 10th Brookings roundtable on global poverty (albeit held rather ironically in Aspen, Colorado) is the role of the private sector in the new global development agenda, that is, the macro-framework to replace the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Next month, the annual UN Secretary-General's 'Private Sector Forum' during the opening session of the UN General Assembly will consider the same topic -- the role of the private sector in shaping and delivering the post-2015 development agenda, this time with a focus on Africa.

This short post just provides a flick to recent previous ones I've done discussing this topic: see in particular here and here on the private sector and the post-MDGs.

Other posts include: the residual tendency to ignore the private sector when defining who counts as a 'stakeholder' in peace, security or development -- see here; thoughts on why development colleagues should be so surprised that the private sector might have a role in their world -- here; and the new pragmatism about the private sector's role that is evident in this decade -- here.

The trend is gathering strength. On the topic I follow particularly closely -- the private sector's role in peacebuilding -- the UN system was largely silent until very recently. A UN forum (see long video) on the issue in June marks a growing recognition of the need to engage with business in building more peaceful, prosperous, inclusive societies. It is good to talk -- although one is often tempted to say 'less activities, more actions'.

Jo

Mobiles, media, and mass messaging in African politics

Within wider debates on the private sector's role in providing, protecting or respecting public goods such as safety and security, non-state media can have special responsibilities.

 

Last week I began preparing notes for a part in the EU Eurojust programme's network on genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, whose next meeting will consider the jurisprudence and practicalities around the potential liability of business entities and owners for complicity in, contribution to, or commission of the most grave international crimes.

 

Most attention focuses on classic scenarios such as a firm that provides lethal gas used in a death camp (IG Farben company's Zyklon-B gas in Nazi Germany). Colonial and post-colonial Africa yield some examples albeit ones that mainly have a less obvious chain of causation or imputed intention to profit from crimes against humanity.

 

The role of the media and telecoms sectors is less often considered, although a notable African exception is the role of a privately-owned local radio station in broadcasting hate-speech and incitement in Rwanda in the lead-up to that country's 1994 genocide. More recently, this year's Kenya elections witnessed a wave of efforts to prevent a repeat of the inflammatory private broadcasts and publications that occurred around the 2007-8 election-related serious ethnic violence. Across West Africa in the last decade, a flowering of non-state newspapers and talk-back radio has fuelled greater free political communication but has also witnessed private media houses acting as platforms for ethnic baiting and stereotyping of a sort that can have very serious consequences.

 

Such situations call for state regulation of private media self-regulation to constrain the production of harmful content well before it constitutes or contributes to the sort of conduct that raises the interest of prosecutors in The Hague. The inherent limits on freedom of expression and the normative weight of prohibitions on incitement to grave crimes mean that such situations raise merely obvious duties -- and not really any dilemmas -- for private media or telecoms outfits (although on-line self-publication raises particular challenges for internet service provider firms).

 

A somewhat different situation for media and telecoms firms around Africa involves not mass crimes or their precursors but the many ways in which commercial provision of communications services comes head to head with electoral or protest politics, mundane or menacing. It is where the pressure for self-censorship or altered operations comes from the state bureaucracy in a context where democratic principles and public order are both potentially directly at stake.

 

It is one thing if a valid law requires, for example, that in the interests of public order a private mobile phone service provider not enable political parties to send mass multi-recipient text (SMS) messages around election time. The issue becomes whether that law is reasonable and of general, impartial application. If not (for instance, if used by the state to suppress the voice of its political opposition or to monitor its communications), the telecoms company may need to make difficult calculations, including balancing its relationship with the government with its reputation or its principals' own principles.

 

In many cases, there may be no formal regulatory basis for state officials to request phone, media or social media firms to constrain their output or their customers' usage. Instead, implicit in such requests is a threat, for instance of non-renewal of broadcast or service provider licences in future. Where politics and business intersect in hard cases, it is far easier for armchair commentators to counsel firms to take a path of principled pragmatism than to have to actually walk it.

 

This week sees controversial elections in Zimbabwe to end the 2008-9 power-sharing arrangement. Homegrown independent mobile phone firm Econet has come under considerable pressure to agree to block mass SMS-sending by organisational users. Ostensibly, the request is premised on a need to preserve public order (Kenya took similar steps ahead of its 2013 election). Some argue that the net effect in the Zimbabwe / Econet case will be to favour one party over another. The firm has reportedly and perhaps understandably obliged.

 

Indeed, these Zimbabwe elections are showcasing more generally the evolving role of mobile and internet (and mobile internet) technologies in African electoral politics -- even if the vast majority of voters across the continent still appear to rely on radio for the bulk of their political self-education.

 

In addition to traditional media (a new private independent TV station recently began broadcasting into Zimbabwe from South Africa, via satellite), the country is experiencing new phenomena such as the 'Baba Jukwa' Facebook character who purports to disclose, from within the ruling party, its many intrigues; Google Africa has launched a one-stop Zimbabwe election hub site collating news and other stories; website votewatch263.org is attempting to mimic Kenyan 'crowdsourcing' experiences by providing a space for individuals to report issues related to the conduct of campaigning and voting; the Econet SMS measure is a first for the country even if state monitoring of communications there is not.

 

Democratic aspirations and political competition will continue to stimulate innovation in the use of mobile and internet technologies across the continent -- sometimes the innovation will come from pro-democracy groups, and sometimes from incumbent regimes (or indeed rebel or other armed groups who in Africa have taken a strong liking to platforms like Twitter).

 

By choice or circumstance, private sector providers will put or find themselves at the heart of this trend.

 

Jo