ABSTRACT

After examining business-based peacebuilding as it is currently practiced, it is important to look to its future. At this point, business-based peacebuilding is promising as a supplement to traditional peacebuilding and conflict options, but there are important analytical contributions that must be made before business-based peacebuilding can be a regular tool for conflict resolution practitioners. One of the most important needs is for a method of analysis that can accurately weigh the contribution of business-based peacebuilding to an overall peace effort and the extent to which business-based peacebuilding options increase or decrease the likelihood of resolution. As mentioned before, this is difficult largely because the peace and conflict literature has not developed these tools to a significant degree. Instead, it is largely made up of claims that one approach does or does not work. In most inter-state or intra-state violent conflict, there will be many attempts to resolve the conflict involving many actors on many levels. Until there is a way to evaluate the entirety of these efforts as well as the individual contributions (positive or negative) made by the actors engaging the conflict, it will be difficult to measure the true effectiveness of business-based peacebuilding and whether businessbased peacebuilding is preferable to other solutions in particular contexts. However, business-based peacebuilding practice is not going to wait until the conflict literature catches up. Businesses are engaging conflict on many levels and anyone approaching the problem from a conflict resolution perspective must acknowledge this reality. For practical purposes, all that can be said is that business-based peacebuilding seems to be helpful and that if businesses are going to try it, the outcomes are likely to be better with the assistance of people trained in the field. Faced with the world as it is, business-based peacebuilding must be engaged as a possibility. One outstanding question that can be addressed to some extent here is how a conflict resolution organization can choose companies that are likely to participate and be successful in business-based peacebuilding. In Chapter 3, most of the examples of business-based peacebuilding involve companies or business associations starting action themselves, without the assistance or encouragement of outside parties. As awareness increases, this will likely

happen less often. The increased interaction of NGOs and IGOs with businesses in conflict areas, illustrated by the growing number of conferences and international education efforts suggests that, in the future, at least some conflict resolution organizations will enter a conflict area looking for business partners. At this point, it is possible to examine some criteria by which this search could be made. To some extent, the options will be limited by the conflict being addressed. Some conflicts will be more amenable to business-based peacebuilding efforts. Although writers on business-based peacebuilding such as Nelson stress the need to establish the type of conflict to formulate a business-based peacebuilding response, an understanding of Sandole’s conflictas-startup conditions and conflict-as-process would encourage the idea that this is less necessary over time. Once a conflict has become conflict-as-process, the tools used to stop or reduce it will likely be more related to conflict in general than the specific circumstances preceding that conflict. If a company is lucky enough to recognize and act on a conflict that is still in startup conditions, it will be well-served to consider Nelson’s recommendation, but otherwise it is likely a wider variety of potential business-based peacebuilding options will be available. For a conflict to be amenable to business-based peacebuilding, there must of course be some kind of commercial presence. As the Sadakhlo Market example shows, however, this need not be the presence of organized corporations. Additionally, there are some identifiable factors that would seem to encourage companies to participate. The most obvious from the prior discussion is the growing cost of conflict on the company, but there are other possible factors as well. In 1999, Political and Economic Consulting (PELC) studied managerial decision making by MNCs operating in conflict areas (Berman 2000). While the purpose of the study was to explain the conditions under which MNCs choose to do business in conflict areas, and not when they might perform a peacebuilding function, PELC’s conclusions provide a sound beginning to estimate which companies may be willing partners. Berman focuses on the criteria under which a company is willing to continue operating in a conflict areas as well as when a company will choose to invest in one. It is reasonable to expect that similar criteria will apply to companies being asked to participate in business-based peacebuilding. PELC found companies are more likely to invest or stay in areas of conflict when the conflict itself is limited geographically. Companies are willing to be involved most often if the conflict is terroristic, when governmental control exists and violence is limited; less often when there is incursional conflict, where the area is controlled by one group and another performs occasional incursions; and less likely for territorial conflict, where different areas within the operating footprint of the company are under control of different groups (Berman 2000: 29). The organization also found government transparency about the conflict encouraged companies to stay, but the presence of a party that is ideologically

motivated against corporate existence (as is the case in some Maoist or Marxist groups), strongly encouraged companies to leave (Berman 2000: 30). It also found industry-related factors. Companies producing basic goods are less likely to leave than those producing discretionary ones and if the resources available in the country are rare enough, there is a strong incentive to stay (Berman 2000: 31-32). While the PELC study did not correlate these factors with willingness to participate in business-based peacebuilding, until a better analysis is available, it provides a good guide to what could be expected. In addition to the PELC factors, other characteristics are likely to influence business-based peacebuilding participation and support. One of these is prior experience. Companies that have participated in peacebuilding in one area will have developed at least some of the institutional knowledge to do so in another. Also, companies that are implicated in exacerbating conflicts, even in other areas, should be avoided as this could cause observers to question the integrity of the business-based peacebuilding efforts. Along with the considerations described by Berman, it may be useful to target specific industries for assistance in business-based peacebuilding. While extractive companies are often those with the weakest exit options and the highest amount of capital invested, they are also often those criticized as contributing to the conflict through revenues and occasionally to use of private security forces. If extractives are the only option, it would be prudent to approach them, but if less-tarnished options are available, they may make better partners. One example of such an industry is mobile telecommunications. Companies providing mobile phone service are often the first to reenter a country that has recently had a reduction in violence. For example, in October 2003, more than 200 companies applied for mobile licenses in Iraq; there are two mobile companies active in Afghanistan and four in Liberia (Bray 2005: 14). There is also an advantage in that these companies are unlikely to be criticized for large-scale environmental problems and should be able to avoid labor difficulties with prudent management. Another industry that makes a good fit for business-based peacebuilding efforts is tourism. Bais and Huijser (2005: 14) argue the relationship between the tourist sector and peacebuilding is largely unique, since it is one of the few sectors whose clients are likely contributing to peace by using just their services, under the belief that travel and interaction limit conflict. This is in no way a complete list. Much more work needs to be done to validate these factors as well as developing other measurements to assist conflict resolution organizations in efficiently targeting partners that will be the most helpful.