Given the growing similarities in concerns between the business community and the humanitarian community about the impact of risk on prosperity, Kenya’s leading mobile service company, Safaricom Limited, and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) co-hosted a Partners Consultation Meeting in December, attended by business leaders, government representatives, diplomates and humanitarians. The goal was to explore the Horn of Africa Risk Landscape and identify opportunities for partnership between the two sectors to mitigate the impact of risk on human security and economic growth.
The consultations addressed the main risks and risk drivers to prosperity in the region; opportunities for cooperation to reduce the identified risks and mitigate impact; good practices already applied in the region, that can be learned from and built upon; and steps required to take forward the prospects for partnership.
“The private sector, civil society, governments and humanitarian agencies need to complement each other’s efforts to guarantee an effective delivery of social services. While humanitarian organizations are always on the frontlines of humanitarian crises, and have better knowledge on how to provide solutions during disasters, the private sector has significant competence in areas of innovation, new technology and cost efficiency. Therefore, partnerships provide new ways of delivering humanitarian assistance, that restore dignity for refugees and provide them with viable options, that fully address their most pressing needs”, said Egeland.
“Due to many competing crises at the moment, we are perpetually being challenged as a humanitarian sector to do more with less resources - including reaching more people. We can do more with less if we change our working method and traditional practices by adopting new thinking towards technological innovation and new partnerships,” said NRC’s Regional Director Gabriella Waaijman.
NRC has partnered with Safaricom, UNHCR and Vodafone Foundation providing refugees, taking computer courses in Dadaab, with a virtual learning platform that opens access to online educational resources. Photo: NRC/Welldon Kinaro.
“The private sector should engage with humanitarian and human rights issues, because it is simply the right thing to do. But if that is not convincing enough, the business case can easily be made,” said Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer.
“In Dadaab's refugee camp, Safaricom has installed 3 cell sites which are now amongst our top ten revenue earners for the company in Kenya. The initial intention was altruistic, but the investment has also proven to generate profit”.
“It makes sense”, said Gabriella Waaijman. “More than 350,000 people live in Dadaab and, like anywhere else, they require services from the public and the private sector. The same is true for other refugee and displacement locations. They are often overlooked by the private sector as places where for-profit services are required”.
An example of how the private sector can help improve humanitarian effectiveness is the ‘Chakula Chap-Chap’ initiative, which translates to ‘food delivered promptly’, a new initiative piloted by Safaricom, UNHCR and WFP. This project enables refugees to access food through a cashless system that facilitates secure electronic payments and delivers an approximate value of 30 US Dollars a month per user. “It restores the dignity of vulnerable persons such as refugees,” said Collymore.
The benefits of ‘Chakula Chap-Chap’ are four-fold, removing the opportunity for corruption by eliminating middle-men, reducing the cost of distributing relief aid, creating employment and business opportunities for people in refugee camps, and giving refugees the opportunity to choose what they prefer to eat within their circumstances.
Industrialist Manu Chandaria explained that a lack of adequate interaction, between non-governmental organizations and profit-making companies, has limited the ability for natural synergies to grow. This is because, while the non-governmental organizations operate in marginalised or far-flung areas that are often exposed to humanitarian crises, profit-making companies operate in capital cities and major towns in order to reach as many clients as possible.
“My industry thrives around major towns, such as Mombasa, Nairobi and Kisumu. If somebody tells me to go to Garissa or Dadaab, I would not find a reason why I should, because my customers do not live there. However, as Bob Collymore demonstrated, the business case can be made. Head Offices, of both non-governmental organizations and private-owned companies, should network aggressively and provide platforms that can enhance collaboration”, he said.
