Mamadou Falilou Sarr asked: most countries seem to concentrate on the macro level and big businesses while in Africa, most people rely on informal sector for employment and revenues, my question is how to combine prevention, protection, and revenue security for these people. The second question is how to better support these micro businesses and take them to the next level, what roles for leading companies? MSMEs
Caroline Ashley answered: there are various innovations. Fast payments essential. Buy forward = pay now for services later. ABinBev are encouraging consumers to buy future meals and matching what they spend, twice over. A range of financial institutions are accelerating their reach, and putting SMEs and new finance or digi-payments together can create new options. Ensuring documentation is sufficient for SMEs to access loans and other financial services is key too.
@richard answered: Often large companies do not have direct relationships with informal businesses in their value chains but they can still engage and provide support through partnerships with NGOs and other intermediaries. Please do take a look at the toolkit in the Response Centre as it identifies a number of actions large companies can take through their core business, philanthropy and policy engagement.
I strongly support Norine’s comments on the unexpected vulnerabilities that have been exposed by the pandemic - and linked to this, how fragile the economic standing is for millions of people who are considered “middle class” in any country. How easy it is to fall back into poverty if a person loses their job and their health insurance, even in the formal economy, let alone the millions of people who work in the informal economy and had no health insurance in the first place. We have to seriously think about social safety nets and concepts such as universal health access and even universal basic income as we move forward.
Interesting one, Emmanuel. I have learnt a lot about my volunteers during this crisis, those that stepped away due to H&S concerns and those that stayed on to help. Not always who I expected. This term ‘personal risk tolerance’ is new to me but seems to fit well with my observed behaviour.
Interesting point. Also makes me think is the people themselves that are vulnerable or the wider economic system that has revealed its vulnerabilities!?
Olatz Armengod asked: How would you suggest making those collaborations between business and government leaders possible in real life? (National Platforms)
@daniel.h.alves answered: It is important that businesses engage with governments with a clear message and a focus on key national priorities, such as raising public health awareness or providing PPE for essential workers. Also, companies can try to be aligned with government plans where possible, taking the role of a helping hand and advocating the importance of public support in times of crisis. In terms of channels that could facilitate collaboration between business and government, companies can reach out to international initiatives that already work in the development field, like the World Economic Forum and Business Fights Poverty, or to existing organisations, such as Chambers of Commerce, that also have a natural proximity with governments.
Hi Norine - yes, this came out strongly in responses to our research for the toolkit to help companies think through how to support their NGO partners at this time. Your point about the unexpected vulnerabilities revealed by the pandemic is one reason why the delivery parameters for work programmed within an NGO-company partnership have often changed dramatically. Mature partnerships are recognising this and looking again at priorities, timeframes and funding, which may all need to be adapted to respond to the new vulnerabilities you point towards.
Informal workers are another vulnerable group, especially in developing countries. They already suffer from lack of adequate social protection, security and labor rights; relatively low pay, poor working conditions and safety and health standards, low productivity and relatively unstable employment
Practical steps to tackle informality will be needed to connecting these informal and vulnerable workers to appropriate healthcare and other COVID19 support and assistance.
Although often taken for granted, I cannot stress enough the role that local chambers, employers federations and other business groups are playing in this space. The International Organization of Employers has an abundance of resources that it is making available for this business to business capacity building and help, not only providing needed assistance but also helping progress the informal players into the formal. IOE actions and resources on this and other aspects of workplace and employer actions, according to region, can be found here https://www.ioe-emp.org/en/policy-priorities/covid-19/
Hi Richard, members are sharing learning and approaches around two priorities in particular, protecting the health and safety of employees and communities and laying the groundwork now for the longer-term recovery of their workforce, and the communities and economies in which they operate. We’re seeing more and more focus on the latter, including on how they are helping suppliers weather the storm, e.g. providing loans/financial support to contractors, suppliers and other local businesses in and outside of supply chains
Two questions on finance that came from the webinar last week:
Karen Newman asked: Would love to hear thoughts for Finance community as well
And Amalia Johnsson: Agree that a perspective from the financial sector would be useful. especially given the role of capital for effective small business recovery.
Q2. What actions are businesses taking to create more resilient economic and social support systems for those who have been the most vulnerable during COVID-19?
Peter asks a really important question. In many ways, the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated inequalities and vulnerabilities that have always existed - making an already hard situation for many people even harder. So in practice, low-income workers, micro-businesses, those in the informal sector are all particularly impact. There is also a critical gender dimension - with women disproportionately impacted. @Jane_Nelson1 and I explored this at a high level in both our original Response Framework and the new Rebuild Better Framework (both available here), and @AliceAllan looks at it in more detail in the context of gender-based violence in her toolkit.
Building on the question from Olatz about “how would you suggest making those collaborations between business and government leaders possible in real life?” - I think we need to build these collaborations on a more permanent basis so that there are already relationships, trust and knowledge of each other among key business leaders and government leaders (ideally civil servants who don’t change with each election) before a crisis hits. Obviously, chambers of commerce and trade associations already do this t a certain extent, but I think we need smaller, more agile platforms of individual, well-known and respected business, civic, tase union and public service leaders who are thinking about national preparedness, response and resilience on an ongoing basis.
Thank you, Sunila. The language is new. I keep tearing out my hair when I hear people talking around the topic without having the language to say what they mean. For example, when people express concern about returning to work, but employers say that they have followed the advice to make sure the workplace is safe for them. That’s their personal risk tolerance not aligning with policy. We see that personal risk tolerance needs to be given greater respect. That’s why we developed the Health Pledge.
Supporting innovations is one way to “build back better”. In Spain, a number of energy companies have launched the initiative Positive Energy + (https://en.callenergiapositiva.com/), which called for energy-related solutions to to alleviate the economic and social impact of COVID-19. Out of 396 proposals, 14 projects were selected. They will receive financial and technical support from one or more of the partners of initiative.
In response to Q2, one key comment (also outlined in my response to Olatz) - we need to Establish permanent, but agile, preparedness partnerships at local level – with host communities, local government entities, schools, hospitals and clinics, food producers or suppliers – lessons can be learned from the UNEP APELL (Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at Local Levels) Programme, which was established over 20 years ago; and from the UN’s Connecting Business Initiative – it is essential we get more institutional mechanisms in place to speed up collective action and system-level response during times of crisis.
A2 Some companies are harnessing their core business to build stronger social support systems to respond to domestic violence. E.g. by scaling up existing online and virtual platforms e.g.the MyPlan app in the US and the Vodafone/Hestia ‘Bright Sky’ app which help with safety decisions if an individual is experiencing abuse. Ideally these should include geo-location facilities to alert the police and to guarantee a fast response to save lives. In settings without options for online platforms, options for text (e.g. WhatsApp) based networks can be encouraged. Online providers must monitor and shut down online abuse.
Avon has developed a multi-pronged campaign ‘Isolated not Alone’ to raise awareness of domestic violence during the COVID-19 crisis. It includes a $1m commitment to front-line services and mobilising their sales network to offer lifesaving sign-posting to those affected. They have also advocated to national governments.
The Kering Foundation has launched an online social media campaign #Youarenotalone to provide information about emergency resources/helplines in the UK, France and Italy.
The food system is also currently under pressure, and many small farmers in low-income countries find it difficult to access their markets. Some are losing their income, others are unable to plant for the next season. Companies, including retailers and agtech platforms, can help to link them to sales markets nearby. This can enable a transformation to more localized food systems, where food is grown near where it is consumed and not shipped thousands of miles around the globe.
Answer to Question 2: Respondents who contributed to our toolkit on helping companies support NGO partners through the crisis stressed the importance of being mindful about balancing support for new needs resulting from COVID-19 vs making progress with vital work begun previously. Helping to address existential threats to an NGO partner will be a precondition for making progress on important ongoing work. Beyond this, companies and NGOs are working together to weigh up the possible added value their partnership could bring to the new needs of vulnerable groups arising from the humanitarian and economic impacts of the crisis. Ongoing work may be just as valuable to them, if it can be reorganised to continue in the new context.