B.COM Unit – 4 ( CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ( CSR ).pptx
Differing perspectives david bright
1. SEAS OF CHANGE
An NGO per spective
April 11th, 2012
David Bright, Oxfam GB
2. 1. Networks and roles
•Development actors aim to support positive change ,stop
negative change, and innovate i.e. work with others
Civil society, Private and
Public sector have changed
roles and attitudes, but
unclear now how change
can best happen
3. 2. Scale systems
• Any opportunity, enterprise or market opportunity
operates in a system. Make the system work .
Identify and address
the ‘drivers’ of change
4. 3. Power is key
• Can you change the winners and losers in the
systems or business you scale?
5. 4. Seas of Change for
who?
• Does the chase for scale 1-2% ‘market-ready’
marginalise the poorest? farmers
(2% farmers 50% of
sales)
3-15%
are
regularly
selling
into
20-30% are
markets
occasionally
connected to
markers and are
food buyers
40-50% are subsistence (e.g.
maize), buy in food, and get
most cash from off farm work.
6. Key resources –
• Scaling up for impact
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/small-farmers-
big-change-scaling-up-impact-in-smallholder-
agriculture-144211
• Think Big. Go Small
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/think-big-go-
small-adapting-business-models-to-incorporate-
smallholders-into-su-114051
• Making Markets empower the
poor
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/making-markets-
empower-the-poor-programme-perspectives-on-using-
markets-to-empo-188950
Friday - From Chain to
change, Gine Zwart
7. 4. Seas of Change for
who?
• Does the chase for scale 1-2% ‘market-ready’
marginalise the poorest? farmers
(2% farmers 50% of
sales)
3-15%
are
regularly
selling
into
20-30% are
markets
occasionally
connected to
markers and are
food buyers
40-50% are subsistence (e.g.
maize), buy in food, and get
most cash from off farm work.
Editor's Notes
Oxfam aims to stop neg change, introduce innovation and support positive change. From a development perspective there has been a ‘sea change’ in institutional role, attitude on public and private responsibility and a willingness to work or even innovate with a spectrum of actors from the private through to the public sectors. This means an is getting into new dialogues or experiments to reduce poverty and inequality on a weekly basis. Whether we are working with a multi-national like Unilever or Katani a Tanzanian processor on smallholder in supply chains, whether we are working with the Bogota municipal Government on how to feed 200k new additions annually to an exiting population of 10 M or how can we work with a mobile phone company to transfer cash by mobile to ensure thousands of starving people don’t die or their children become malnourished. So the potential to work with other has increased giving greater potential to scale. Our role in long-term development has changed from provider of aid to a facilitator of innovation or lobbying for changes. Oxfam is forming multiple new relationships with those trying to innovate or form positive change, many of these relationships can be described a inclusive business models. What is clear that the old order of all business is bad, Government sets policy and NGO’ provide service or lobby for policy change is long gone. A new world of opportunity that ha many name has now appeared, inclusive business being one of them. Innovation is seemingly increasing but with this shift in roles and attitudes, further complexity is added. Who pays for investment in infrastructure such as road, who gives farmers technical advice or who support farmers gain business accumen or women functional literacy to run a business become a less straight forward question. When you go further and need to agree a common vision between an NGO, companie and Government or any mix, how you get there, further confusion. There are multiple beliefs on ‘the BEST ways’ to make change happen or the ways we think we CAN make change happen. Firstly, what are you looking for in a partnership in this room and do you believe this is primarily found in the commercial sector? One truth we see if we had started many of our relationships is how can we accentuate positive change already happening in your supplier base or supply chain already.
So here are a few giant of the Colombian dairy industry. Oxfam has worked with Alpina a billion dollar dairy company to innovate around micro-dairies. Let’s just check what you all think might be the best solution to an old problem. The mising middle – financing agri-enterprises, in this case mall women led micro-dairies of about 50 farmers each. Efficient markets and perfect knowledge drive increased financial services, so just reduce the red tape to scale Government policy shapes the economy, create finance policy that ‘de-risks’ lending to key poverty reducing sector such as ag? Innovation is the mother of invention, we just need to find the right business model? The principle of applying a systems approach is the really interesting leap forward in ways of working in the development sector. Multiple frameworks, multiple names – M4P is well known, alongside inclusive healthy value chain, inclusive value chains, inclusive business models, regoverning markets. What I would argue is that to achieve scale, it’ not about an inclusive business but getting a supporting, functioning system around the enterprise, the financial service, the sector you are working on. Then different actors will drive the systemic change we are seeking. Example of Gates and the delivery of improved health. Moved from delivering vaccines to working on the health system In Colombia Alpina could not get commercially competitive supplies from a multiple small producers relative to large ranches. We worked with them to prove a micro-dairy could be low cost enough to be commercially efficient and critically to change the supporting market system to enable finance, dairy production and transport to be competitive. This meant working with a range of local businesses and local Government to create a market system to enabled the micro-dairy production to work. So in the case of dairy production in Colombia we are working with existing financial institutions to extend credit by making Alpina’s orders more predictable, reducing the risk of non-repayment, alongside an enterprise with a viable business plan. Given we are working with primarily women small-scale producers in a large companies supply chains means either outcome is a challenge. But if we can get the financial markets to work for this chain then drive their new product or service this can then reach thousands more producers beyond dairy. Further scale is achieved by Alpina can ‘rolling-out’ this micro-dairy model and the supporting market system. Networks and partnerships are key, but identifying the ‘drivers’ of change within a system can take an enterprise to scale or build a sector employing thousands rather than singular supply chains serving hundreds where existing market actors drive the systemic change beyond a project. Challenge is senior staff in most organisations, but particularly private sector need results and are you willing to take margin hits to build this supply base or is it supply when commercially ready? Even development organisations, we work on 3-5 year strategies and project cycles. We’re unsure if we will able to work with Alpina to replicate or take to scale what works from our experiments We often hear the absence of Government creates an uneven playing field around supply chain governance, such as with labour rights, minimum wages, land distribution. How willing are companies to work with Government?
The principle of applying a systems approach be an interesting leap forward in the development sector. Multiple frameworks, multiple names – M4P is well known, alongside inclusive business models, regoverning markets, inclusive value chains. Many names many frames, all have positives, but different institutions have different beliefs on what is possible when intervening within the market system. To gain scale the tendency is to try to maximise the investment made a company for instance in developing new smallholder suppliers. The issue we are currently working to overcome in the systems approach, is it’s not only about changing the system to work to be more inclusive, you need to also alter how the system functions to avoid expanding small producers taking on low-paid roles bearing the greatest risk, when they are the least able to cope with shocks such as floods, volatile prices, or sudden loss of markets. Oxfm remains questioning of how well these systems approaches will reduce poverty and particularly inequality , at its heart, Oxfam programmes are sceptical about getting just any kind of economic growth or just getting in more numbers of producers even this is low-paid work. Our experience tends to be that the poorest get left behind and many investments fail to address the challenge women face in becoming active in the economy. Oxfam is about the reduction of poverty and inequality, so working with as many producers as possible is the ideal but the quality of these jobs and who gets them is also key? Alpina example. As the rather complex diagram shows, it’s not just about what sits in the market system. In Ethiopia we applied the same systems approach to the two key issues we found that was a barrier entering the honey sector. Change the technology by making affordable hives that were placed on the ground and light weight. This is equally true of maintaining the natural capital agriculture is built upon, the soil quality, water availability, sustainable ag. Practices. We are seeing large scale land and industrial agricultural production using unsustainable levels of water or dependent on high levels of fertiliser inputs. This chase for scale is something we are finding is reducing the qualitative change needed to reduce poverty and inequality. To make this sustainable change that protects the natural resource it is built upon. Companies - Do you know how many women are primary suppliers or relative land size or wealth ranking? Development agencies - Do you even disaggregate gender, let alone have active social interventions to enable women to become entrepreneurs?
Three quick final points. Coming back to the point at the beginning, if we are just looking for inclusive business models are we missing the viral changes we are seeing that are increasing income or food production of the poorest. For example we are seeing the system of rice intensification, spreading like a virus among millions of small producers world wide while the scientists are still struggling to find the evidence......... for us the evidence is rather clear: it works for millions of poor farmers. We are seeing the greatest growth and income potential in high value domestic markets or ‘feeding the cities’ as we describe it, working across multiple crops in smallholder systems. Both reduces market risks and can maximise returns moving between crops. Building market infrastructure around linear supply chains can reduce this positive impact e.g. Caribbean bananas. Many new public/private initiatives such as the development corridors in Tanzania and Vietnam. Are these processes done to local populations or how are they involved in the governance, the types of linear investments or market infrastructure that supports both linear chains and diversified cropping? So how many companies, public bodies or development agencies insist in ensuring producers are represented in these grand plans?
