The global capacity of the humanitarian community to meet the needs of communities affected by natural disasters, chronic emergencies, conflict, political crises and the threat of new and recurrent diseases is being expended and it has become essential for the humanitarian community to not only strengthen and broaden its network of partners but also seek more innovative approaches to save lives and improve the quality of life.

As a result, the mutual search for innovation has brought the humanitarian and business communities closer in recent years, said United Nations (UN) World Humanitarian Summit chief secretariat Jemilah Mahmood.

Speaking at a regional business consultation in Midrand, in Gauteng, last month, she noted that disasters were becoming more complex and went beyond the geographical boundaries of the primary affected country.

“The UN is consulting with businesses at all levels to hear their opinions and perspectives on how best to achieve emergency preparedness and address response challenges. “We are creating pilot projects with private-sector partners and local networking platforms to demonstrate what can be done. “We are also currently working with business partners in current emergencies to address the most immediate humanitarian action that needs to happen,” she said.

The consultations are being held in the run-up to the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit, which is set to take place in Istanbul in 2016. The goal of the summit is to identify new ways of tackling global humanitarian needs. The three-year initiative is managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The summit will set a new agenda for global humanitarian action and will focus on humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and managing risk, transformation through innovation, and serving the needs of people in conflict.

A series of regional business consultations invites individuals and groups to identify humanitarian challenges and make recommendations to promote solutions.

“The impact of disasters on business can be devastating. “The Ebola outbreak has posed tremendous challenges to trade and markets and has led to increased costs of food and essential items, as well as having the potential to impact on travel and tourism on the continent. “The bottom line is that disasters and crises are now everybody’s business. “The good news is that there are many ways the private sector can bring about value, disaster preparedness and humanitarian action,” Mahmood stated.

In addition to contributing financially, businesses could offer expertise in strategic planning, technology, innovation, good management processes and other resources to the humanitarian arena.

Businesses were set up to have more forward-looking strategies and cutting-edge and efficient processes, as well as a better understanding of populations through market surveys, while they also had more advanced supply chain and logistics capabilities, she said.

Forward-looking financial risk management is essential to businesses but that needs to expand to include disaster risks. Further, contributions from businesses are important not only after a disaster has struck, as disaster preparedness is as important.

The largest-scale impact was achieved through core business activities that incorporated emergency preparedness and response in its considerations, Mahmood advised.

“Better collaboration between the business and humanitarian sectors can help us understand that business continuity is also part of disaster risk management and preparedness and there are many valuable lessons both sectors can learn from each other,” she said.

Globally, humanitarian and private-sector partnerships have resulted in improvements in emergency data collection and analysis, more effective logistic flows, resilient infrastructure and housing, stockpiling of goods and impressive locally designed emergency services, she added.

Business Involvement
Also speaking at the consultation was South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Neren Rau who said that businesses needed to be appreciated for their good work in humanitarian efforts and added that those that were not undertaking such efforts needed to be inspired to become a part of joint initiatives.

“This consultation is an important engagement because we often underestimate, as individual businesses, the capacity we have and what we can achieve. “There’s no competitive loss in sharing experiences and ideas. Hopefully, we can be seen as more effective partners in whatever community we operate. If we get these conversations going and put them into practice, as well as form partnerships, it will create greater levels of activism,” he said.

As one of the business representatives at the consultations, pharmaceuticals company Pfizer CEO Brian Daniel stressed that the private sector needed to respond to disasters more quickly and added that the necessary internal processes must be in place to respond swiftly.

“We need to show local commitment in a way that satisfies all parties affected in a humanitarian crisis. We have committed R500 000 to local efforts to support the Ebola crisis. At a global level, we continue to contribute and engage with international aid agencies on the issue and have committed $5-million,” he revealed.

He advised businesses to develop and maintain a healthy relationship with key stakeholders in their respective markets of operation and to have a companywide or global strategy that underpinned humanitarian issues.

It was also important to have an internal system that was efficient and effective.