Conclusion offered during 'Creating Shared Value'

At the end of Nestle's conference on 'Creating Shared Value', Graham Baxter (acting CEO of the International Business Leaders Forum), Nestle CEO Paul Blucke and Harvard's JFK Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative Jane Nelson had a conversation about the 'global partnerships'. It had been a long day, with panels discussing rural development, nutrition and water - the audience was restless, tired and ready to move on. At the end of the 'conclusions', Nestle awarded their new 'Creating Shared Value Prize' to International Development Enterprises (IDE) Cambodia for a project which increases the standard of living of Cambodian rural population by improving agricultural productivity and income.

Nestle SA CEO Paul Bulcke attempted to offer an overview of the highlights from the day. He seemed a tad overwhelmed by the immense amount of 'interesting information' that had been debated, and not altogether sure how it all hung together. He did point to the end of an era where 'development' meant 'you (dark poor people) need to become like us (rich white people)' - though one has to question how much this era has truly ended when one considers much of the work and attitudes still being advanced by different development organisations.

Jane Nelson from JFK and Director of the CSR Initiative there, however, graciously stole the show. She's been called a 'CSR rockstar' in the past, and it doesn't take long to see why. Kudos to Nestle for getting her - and long may be she grace such gatherings exploring the relationship between international development and doing business better. She's also recently released a delightful book, 'The business of peace'  exploring how business can and should contribute to peace keeping and conflict resolution the world over. At the end of the conference, she pointed out the importance of four main concerns.

1. Thinking Systemically. It was a theme throughout the conference. This requires a new style of leadership between different issues, not just within issues. In a situation of growing complexity, it is essential that one's core business operations and value chains embody sustainabile development. She pointed to the importance and potential of collaborative partnerships at the local and watershed level - not just at the global or national level. And she highlighted to systemic thinking in governance - including the challenge of building political will where it doesn't already exist - is clearly a major challenge. Business needs to use their potential to influence governance to do so for the good of the entire community - ie, supporting initiatives to create better infrastructure and to deal with corruption.

2. She pointed to the 'disconnects' that were apparent throughout the day:. This included short term vs long term thinking - it is important to deliver on both and the importance of women in enabling development and yet their lack of power, including representation on the panels at the conference itself.

3. Trust and Accountability - critical - and to whom are we (business and development) accountable? How do business gain trust from communities (not damaging their fish is a good start)? How do we manage multiple accountabilities - in both business and international development? Justmeans knows the importance of accountability - as shown in the recent conference on the  2010 Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency  #griconference.

4. Scaling up and Scaling out - yup. That one is also critical for international development.