Mandatory Sustainability Reporting?

Last week the Global Reporting Initiative that has led the movement behind Sustainability Reporting (which goes by several other names as well) called for reporting to be mandatory in light of the recent financial crisis and even lower lack of trust in business that this is generating. This is a real change from their previous position that reporting should be voluntary; though they did encourage reporters to use certain criteria.

However, I think what needs to happen is not just for reporting to be compulsory, but that the contents of Reports needs to be mandated in one specific (and new) way. Every company should have to set a level of risk and be required to report any event or activity that is above that level from both a historic perspective, and future perspective.

Thus a Report would say:
"Last year there were 9 events or actions (etc) that represented a significant risk to the business. These 9 events were xxx and we responded by yyy, and to prevent these happening again we have/will do zzz"

"We expect this year, that the major risks will be around ffff, ggg and hhh. Thus we are doing iiii to prevent them".

Right now Reports are too opportunity focused and are not really providing investors (or other stakeholders) with a real assessment of their CR related risks (or indeed business risks, depending on how you define CR). There needs to be a degree of honesty from companies about what has gone wrong in order to ensure stakeholders the company is dealing with this.

In this sense, CR reports could be a very useful, strategic and forward-looking, activity that is adding real value. I still struggle to find many reports that mention any of the negative aspects of a company's work.

Whether the kind of CR report I mention needs to be publicly available is not particularly important. Of course the report needs to be (legally) available to regulators and to investors -and as such, this report does not need to be succinct -instead it needs to be comprehensive and large companies are going to need to, presumably, have long reports if there were so many activities that breached the threshold (that should be set by the company through a stakeholder dialogue that meets some minimum legal level).

If a company chooses to make the report publicly available (and easily navigable online), this would be a bonus; though I would expect certain contents would need to be kept our of the public-eye for privacy, regulatory and competitive reasons.

Discovering what will be next

Yes, CSR is the answer to preventing the next crisis, because CSR if generally perceived as being about being responsible to stakeholders -which requires knowing what stakeholders think responsible is. And if you find some stakeholders that can define irresponsible -and related them to your company somehow; then that is where the risks are!

Stakeholder engagement, though, generally starts with talking to the main stakeholders and working out what the big issues are. Then engagement goes on two parallel tracks; one looking at engaging at those issues in depth across all stakeholders, and the other looking into depth at the key stakeholders (across the range of issues affecting them).

But for this to be effective, the little voices, the little stakeholders need to be heard. The one stakeholder that said that debt is bad, that debt and consumerism and endless retail growth is not sustainable -that stakeholder needs to be found and listended to, as wacky as that person might sound like. In reality there were not many stakeholders that said that debt was bad. The investors liked it if they saw greater profit (mistakenly it turns out); the government liked it if created more wealth (aka debt) and stimulated economic activity (aka unsustainable spending); customers liked it (who does not like buying?) and so on.

Finding the issues that will affect you, especially in an era where are few unhappy people can cause a big problem through the internet, is the nexy step for all the super-advanced companies with excellent stakeholder engagement. Yes they are aware of the current issues stakheolders have, but they are not doing well enough to spot the future ones -by talking to the minority stakeholders, who get crowded out from aggregated responses.

Go engage, but engage beyond the local level issues, the global issues, the 'expert opinion' issues and start to explore other industries that you never dreamed would affect you. Go explore the issue that no-one thinks is important -try to see if you can find any reason that it might be important. Go and spot trends through new media, employees and academics. Don't just predict and anticipate the future: predict and anticipate the issues in that future.

What worth is CSR Assurance?

Recently a report came out about assuring CSR reports (i.e. verifying that the information in the reports are true) which was funded by CSR Assurance companies (hmmm), saying that not enough companies are assuring their CSR reports (surprise, surprise).

I would like to proffer that CSR assurance is actually pretty pointless and useless (in of itself) because:
1) How much time or effort do any of the assurers put into looking at any of the data to see if it is true; is it even possible to verify half the data anyway?
2) Is there any legal liability for assurers, like there is for assuring regular financial reports?
3) Does the assurance mean anything to the reader at all, or add any value to a CSR report?

Question 3 is rather interesting, because the best CSR reports now include all kinds of other methods of assurance, though not technically 'assurance' which for me are much more interesting and useful. These include comments from concerned employees or customers, (unedited) comments from critical stakeholder councils and even comments from a CSR expert on whether the key Reporting principles have been followed or not (e.g. GRI has several principles including materiality). Others include reports from SRI experts or other relevant shareholders.

All of these comments mean more than a statement that the numbers are correct, which i truly doubt, since many of the most important numbers are hard to measure and the rest rely on self-reporting from the company anyway (rather than some auditor going across the world to check on what the exact waste is from any particular machine and whether that is what it has been claimed to be).

So, nothing wrong with assurance, but i do not think it adds much value to a CSR report for external readers, and probably does not (in of itself) help a company improve itself internally. At least, in the press release, they admit that the quality of assurance varies widely, and also point out that many of the assurers are also the ones who help prepare the report!

Responding to signals and feedback

One of the most striking concepts in Diamond's book is that of the rulers and elite of a society becoming too insular from the actual society and thus unaware of the signals of pending problems; once they realise, it is too late to change.

In this sense, we must wonder whether the elite of society would be the ones most able to survive a collapse (and if so, they have no motivation to prevent a collapse) or whether they too would suffer.

Somewhat related to this is that it seems businesses are being more responsive to the trends in society than elite or politicians are; maybe because businesses are thinking long-term and elite or politicians are not. Businesses might, though not democratically elected, be more responsible to their share holders and customers and employees (through active media, NGOs etc) and thus responsive to changes. However the problem with business is, though they need a successful civilization/society/economy in order to exist, their focus is not on the success of society, their focus will be on profits or some other metric that is rather selfish (as with selfish, nationalistic, governments).

In this sense are the current systems of global governance helping or hindering in any improvements in our responses to the obvious destruction we are causing?

It would seem that the global formal and informal governance systems are not up to the job, but they themselves will protect themselves (and resist too many calls for change or competition for governing institutions) and we will be unable to solve global problems collectively, or as individuals.

Who is pressurising Chinese companies in Africa?

What comes into my mind when reading some of the endless articles of Chinese companies irresponsible practices in Africa, like this from Bloomberg news, is not the reasons why it is happening (of course there is pressure to keep costs low and pressure to access resources), not if Chinese companies are any worse than Western companies (either past or present) or other 'developing countries' companies (presumably not that much difference, but more Chinese companies out there and China is in the spotlight more) -but i wonder what the people running these companies are thinking.

I am a strong believer that people are inherently good, though also selfish. This thus means many people will put themselves over others, but if it is a matter of 'a bit more wealth' vs 'death for a child', i am mystified how people can, as human beings, make such a choice. The answer might be that such a choice never happens -that poor decisions create accidents, rather than people purposely acting irresponsibly knowing the impact it will have. Besides, if it is not forced labour, if it was so bad, wouldn't the workers find work elsewhere?

Is not this just the same as has happened (and still does happen, though not so explicitly any more) in China for decades? If China has improved (somewhat), will Africa improve too? Why did China improve and what lessons might this hold for Africa? Does Africa need a strong state to establish and enforce laws (though China's strong state only selectively enforced its own laws)?

Does Africa need more pressure from the West (presumably this makes no difference, as there has been pressure for a long time with no impact) or does Africa (note, the use of the term Africa in this post is inappropriate, but we will use it for simplicity) need other forms of pressure -from customers (Western end-customers might care; direct Chinese middle-men or end-Chinese customers probably do not care), from media (Chinese media will rarely criticize Chinese companies), from Chinese NGOs (are there any that do this kind of thing, apart from INGOs in China?) or from other groups..... I have to say, it does not look good.

The pressures that helped China clean up its act somewhat (some will say that it is still getting worse in China!) do not exist in Africa, so I am wondering how can we encourage some kind of pressure...from Chinese NGOs on Chinese companies, from Chinese media on Chinese companies, from Chinese government on Chinese companies or from any other source of pressure -ideally inside China and ideally with some actual leverage on Chinese companies in Africa. Any ideas?

On a slightly different note, many of the companies that get into the news about Africa are either state-owned, privately owned or micro entrepreneurs. What is the role of the Chinese government in monitoring these activities? Is there a role at all? For some activities, where there is funding from the Chinese state (through the export-import bank) there is a clear role and clear line of responsibility, and the Exim bank, as it is known, is claiming to take its responsibility seriously (though not as seriously as other International banking institutions that have signed up to the Equator Principles and similar collaborative agreements).

For the others operating in China, the government is unlikely to see a need to interfere at all. There is no such 'Alien Tort Act' for Chinese companies operating overseas, as there is for American companies; which can be prosecuted in the USA for irresponsible activities outside the USA. Any lawyers out there know of any Chinese legislation that could be use, say by an INGO, inside China to sue the companies mentioned in the Bloomberg report?

Making a difference to education

Always a hot topic and ultimately the bedrock of creating a sustainable society, for without quality and accessible education there can be no government officials, judges, teachers, doctors, engineers, journalists etc and it will be harder to reduce corruption and inequality or increase participation.

It is common to focus on helping those who really need it, and making a massive difference to those who are disadvantaged and lack the opportunities that others have. This is not a bad thing, especially if the school or students have (or will have) a relationship to the company, i.e. by being in the company's 'local community'. Scholarships can be great especially if they are motivating others as well as those who get the scholarship, and if they are really helping the needy.

But, for these initiatives, a holistic perspective must be taken. The most needy might not apply for the scholarship or be able to take advantage if they have to care for their family or must work to earn income for their family (so does one provide a scholarship to the student and also cover the opportunity cost of that student not generating income?). A school might look great, but what is the quality of the teaching? In many poor areas, even with trained teachers and good facilities, is there ongoing support for the teachers and are the children actually healthy enough to attend school and concentrate?

A school is not just teachers and students, it is also head-teachers, local education officials, parents and even sisters/brothers. All of these (and more) are stakeholders in the school to varying extents and through participation ideas and efforts from all can be generated and then implemented. But participation does not come naturally and must be facilitated to ensure those who do not want to participate, who are afraid to participate, who are unable to participate -do participate.

Support also must take a long-term and wider perspective in order to understand any side-effects from the program. An extreme case could be that the government has money for the school, but because of a corporation's contribution, that money ends up in someone's pockets, but to all affective purposes, what the money was earmarked for was achieved and thus the books can easily be amended! And what about the other schools, or the other students, that do not get the support of the company -how do they feel? How can the support in one location rub-off onto others? Anything is possible as long as such an approach is taken.

This kind of effort is not easy, and this is why companies rarely do this themselves and instead partner with another organisation, but a company needs to understand the issues to thus select a suitable partner and help that partner (whose capacity may well be weak, if they operate in an area that needs help). Reducing poverty is not easy and as with the case in China, the poor are often stuck in a rut. A certain proportion can get out of poverty relatively easily, but for the rest, it takes a long time and a lot of effort.

A company's 'community'

It is often hard to define the community around the company -yes a company should be a good neighbour to its community, but a better word than community is influence. A company should do good within its sphere of influence which is wider than 'community' and therefore better for society, but it is also easier to identify a company's sphere of influence (through mapping) and where the leverage points are to make a difference in that sphere.

Market Intelligence

Fundamental to R&D, marketing, sales and more; yet how good is our market intelligence? CSR helps with principles to listen more, speak less; talk, understand, question, analyse and then it is possible to get useful market intelligence. Understand the current market, understand new (potential) markets, understand the trends affecting all markets; all of this helps to improve product and service identification and sale but also helps give the market what it wants, which is a key responsibility of business!

The most improtant stakeholder cannot speak

The natural environment is what all of us rely on for our existence, so it is quite important to know what it thinks, what it is up to, what's affecting it, how it relates to us. But, it cannot speak, and environmental NGOs/Charities may be able to stand up for the environment, but they do not really know what it needs, what its state is and what it wants to say. Of course, they should continue to try to communicate with the environment through research as much as possible, and to try to listen to the signals the environment gives off. This way, they can do their job as best as possible -and they need to, we are really not listening to the environment; instead we are suffocating it!

Risk and Opportunity

I fundamentally believe that CSR is about companies behaving responsibly; why would they do this? Simple: to reduce risk and find new opportunities. Those risks and opportunities can be related to PR, employees, sales etc etc. Though many companies like the word 'opportunity', others might not really understand the word 'risk', a good way of expressing this is to explain that it is all about trying to "pre-empt potential blindsides". In business, there is always something that will unexpectedly come up and affect you. It is necessary to try to anticipate these and act to mitigate their impacts.

Hence the importance of stakeholder dialogue so a company is more in touch with its stakeholders and able to better predict future 'blindsides'. It is crucial -start engaging today!

Participation

Levels of Participation is what possibly used to be 1 aspect separating businesses from NGOs from governments -but the recent trend has been for everyone to take-up participation in different ways which is now another example of the blurring of the line between the 3.

Governments all try different models of participation as democracies or even as autocracies too various degrees; with citizens able to vote on certain people or decisions as well as have access to information and the ability to input into ideas, processes etc through consultations.

NGOs have long had to use participation to find volunteers and raise funds and utilise some sort of research to start an idea and then to affect real change engage people in their activities as much as possible.

Businesses used to only use participation for market research and employee unions, but now involve employees much more, customers and their ideas much more and stakeholder engagement is the buzz word around to identify new opportunities and understand potential risks.

Though all kinds of participation are different within sectors and within organisations there still is a trend for all 3 sectors to increase their participation: for government it is a way to increase their legitimacy (which is getting lower), for businesses it is a way to increase trust and hopefully increase profits and for NGOs it helps increase their impact.

Participation for me is a great thing as it helps create mutual accountability between groups, increases communication, gains greater agreement, inspires confidence and generates ideas amongst other things. Of course there are limits to how much participation is useful -however I believe these limits should be decided by the 'participants' rather than those deciding. If it requires too much time for too little benefit, let the 'participants' say! If 'participants' are not qualified for certain discussions, let them realise so!

Power to the people, greater participation and greater involvement can unite this world slowly and surely to achieving better things for more people in better ways. After all, who will complain if an idea they contribute to fails? Though they might not take responsibility, they will still be happy about the process of decision making -and this is the key point for participation. The process is more important than the result and if 'successful' will often achieve better results in the wider sense.

partnerships

Reflecting back on a 'Strategic Marketing' course at University reminds me that I did learn something.. and indeed, still remember something of use from University. Namely that though partnerships tend to be seen as a end in themselves, and a very popular concept nowadays, partnerships to really be a mean to an end.. and once the end is achieved (or as close as can be), the partnership should be dissolved (therefore when it is created, such a dissolution point should be planned for).

I also remember that the professor's definition of strategic partnership made for interesting thinking: combining different strengths of organisations together for example, or that a partner often enters a partnership hoping to actually beat its partner -partnerships are rarely equal and partner's unstated goals rarely the same. Of course there was much more to the course, such as the difficulties of creating and integrating joint activities, managing them and so on.

In my work I look at strategic benefits in a philanthropy way: between organisations of different sectors, which explicitly have different objectives from partnerships: a company might hope to improve its reputation whereas a charity might want to help poor people. However these partnerships are often fairly successful.

What about partnerships where all partners' over-riding goal is a philanthropic one? This strikes me as interesting because everything in 'business' is about motivation: if the motivation is so strong and commitment so great, might success be achieved? So the recent trend for all kinds of people to start joining coalitions or partnerships to fight some aspect of poverty. Many are not real partnerships; indeed a coalition is often just a membership of a club where you contribute something and a central secretariat actually does something with it. But for actual partnerships; with each partner contributing something, doing something, having a direct stake in the outcome etc -then are these partnerships more successful (the typical MBA textbook will state how often mergers fail to add value, or how often partnerships do not bring much benefit to either partner!) than traditional business partnerships (which my professor was talking about)?

I hope to find out more over the course of my career; one thing is sure, is that these new partnerships (Cross Sector Partnerships, Corporate Community Engagement and so on) are rarely assessed adequately in the context of how successful the partnership is (if it is actually a partnership, rather than just a 'sponsorship'); and only the outcome of the partnership is assessed (and often badly).

Supply Chain and Development

After a recent conference on Supply Chain Management I came to realise a few things. The most important is how great a lot of the stuff Brands are doing: they are (for various reasons) demonstrating fantastic leadership and I believe had made a big difference in the last 10+ years. There are of course multiple problems still to contend with; especially considering what they are doing is not driven my much local pressure; and most of what they are doing should, to some extent, be done by the government (enforcing Health and Safety laws, working hours laws etc).

There are some fantastic pilots taking place that really bring 'CSR' to local managers in factories and engage with all stakeholders in such programs (including, crucially, the workers) -so that the managers themselves see the business benefits of CSR -and are actually able to understand CSR as a holistic concept, rather than what they see at the moment (compliance, training etc). There is further to go, not least in addressing the scale-up challenges involved.

Scaling-up is the buzz word in the development world (where I work) and it is clear that the CSR world needs to take a leaf from the development world's book -or at least learn the lessons the development world has gained from many years of failures, and some successes attempting such grand initiatives. The Business world may be great at scaling up marketing, but scaling up CSR/development programs is different. For too long pilots have occurred in the supply chain and not expanded, there has been a lack of involvement of government, policy makers and academics, there has been limited attempts at partnership with other sectors (or with competitors) and not enough capacity building.

Maybe Supply Chain Staff should meet Marketing staff and realise that distributing products requires partnerships and adequate distribution channels, as well as effective communications, effective research and so on.

This takes me to the lesson the Supply Chain only seems to have recently learnt: the need to engage with stakeholders and more than this, provide for the stakeholders to make the decisions. In the development world the community is encouraged to make decisions -an example might be an offer of funding for a community to improve the community. Now, the funder might not actually care what the community chooses to do with the money, what they care about is the process the community went through to make the decision. Thus the community has buy-in and is accountable to itself as well as the funder, and the community will learn the lessons. At the conference people were finally talking about the need for a bottom-up approach; an engagement approach and so on.

There is of course a lack of people around who can facilitate this process, inspire the stakeholders to be involved, or trust the stakeholders enough! But, for Supply Chain Improvements to really take off, that is what must happen. The Buyers will need to reach a stage where they trust their suppliers and step back -audit less not more.

A Factory is different to a village community though, so Buyers need to empower the managers to willingly want to empower and engage with their employees and other stakeholders. Not much sustainable benefit to the buyers doing all the 'csr' on behalf of a factory they do not own! When a Factory manager spoke to us, he was not knowledgeable about CSR as a concept -and indeed most auditors are not 'csr experts' -they are auditors, and this is the problem. Most trainers (either from the company, ngos or consultancies) are training bits and pieces as required by whoever pays their services.

Development looks at comprehensive needs of a community, takes into account external factors, spends as much on research before a programme and evaluation after the programme (plus disseminating learning points) as the programme itself. Development requires spending LOTS of money, but aims to do small things well, then identify opportunities to scale-up -often involving government, business and other stakeholders.

The key to development though is that those being 'developed' want to be developed -they see the benefits, and this is not something the supply chain movement started with; and is something it has tried to create -Brands are having to go in and convince the factories of the benefits of CSR. Will this and other lessons be learnt? I suggest a dialogue between development NGOs and the Supply Chain actors; share some lessons, and then lets make sure that what is happening is sustainable. I don't believe much of the supply chain movement is sustainable. There are some fantastic examples, but these are few, and the sample a tiny proportion of all 'supliers' that exist -which is almost any company that sells something to someone!

Though the migrant workers complained at the conference about lack of training and how they wanted innovative training, career development opportunities and so on; they are much better off than in their villages -if not they would not be there. Ambition is a great thing. How about they take some of these lessons back to the factory outside their village, and take some leadership upon themselves? I think there needs to be some re-thinking about scaling-up. Let's hope that future conferences focus on that. Too much good stuff is happening to be wasted on having such low impact.

Is this great stuff bringing the whole field up? Maybe some of the factories in apparel, toys and electronics in a couple of geographical areas are getting better. Is the entire field of factories getting better, no matter where they are based or what product they are making? No, but some leaders need to start re-thinking, re-planning and being more ambitious.

Decision Making

Having mentioned accountability before, it is interesting to note the recent European Constitution discussions, in that there is a big focus on decision making. Some countries' parliaments have decided on behalf of the country, other countries have decided to let their people say in a referendum. There are arguments for and against referendums in various circumstances, and they make for interesting reading.

Having elected a government, should you trust them to make the right decisions? If you elect a government based on their manifesto, are they only allowed to do what they wrote in their manifesto (and thus extra decisions need to be voted on)? and so on.

Its interesting from a leadership point of view to draw parallels with leadership styles -how much do you involve your stakeholders (or voters), how much do you listen to them and how much should they control what you do? Without a detailed analysis of the development of business's decision-making it seems clear that what has developed is supposed to be the most efficient.

This means that since there are so many stakeholders it might not be sensible for them all to have some say in how the business is run, but just to let those who should know best to make the decisions (presuming they are making them for the good of the business and not for themselves). A separation of the decision makers from the stakeholders can therefore be a good thing (within reason). However it might also be that if someone can create a better way for stakeholders to have their say, to create the right long vs. short term focus, to create an environment whereby different opinions can be discussed and somehow lead to an agreement then maybe the decision making in businesses would change.

So far, no-one has managed that. For a start, stakeholders are so numerous, with such varied motives and powers that its nigh impossible to create an agreement amongst them. Most businesses are based on the idea that 1 set of stakeholders (shareholders) hold the most power and the rest voice their opinion in a less direct way (through the media, through consumer groups, through lobbying, through buying or not buying etc).

However, as some countries political leaders are realising the internet can be used to create forums for discussion, to create opportunities for feedback and to create much easier ways to 'vote' on decisions. In that, if it takes months or years to organise an election physically, it could be done virtually in minutes with the promotion/education not requiring printing or distribution and with the administration of a vote done online with automatic counting. Thus should leaders embrace the internet to look into new models of decision making?

Its clear that there is a delicate balance between everything: between voting on every minor decision and not voting at all are 2 extremes. Voting on a new CEO but not voting for the Head of Asia for example is a narrower line.

Leaders certainly need to engage with stakeholders and take their opinions into account when making decisions; and leaders must use their own judgment to decide what opinions to listen to and what weight to be placed on each. Indeed, an element of objectivity is often crucial, if not impossible to actually possess.

When you are making decisions, who will they impact? who will have a say in them? who are you listening to and what biases are distorting your vision? Is your decision-making style consultative or dictative?

Accountability

So Tony Blair got elected again, despite some sources maintaining that the opposition party (Conservatives) actually got more votes. Well, he didn't cheat, but he running a system whereby those who he is directly accountable to -the people, do not seem to have much of a say in his performance.

Now, I am not saying that it is easy to create a democratic system; since every country has a different one, there is obviously no right method. However I do believe that there should be pressure for reform if the system is functioning so badly.

Accountability is crucial. How can he claim to represent the majority of the British people if he does not? Therefore he should govern the country on the principle that he represents only 20% of the population. Thus the rest of the population should have a way of expressing their opinion in order to represent themselves, and this could be through a demonstration, like the 1 million people (of a total population of 60 million) who protested about Iraq. That is a sizable number, should they be taken more seriously if they march again, since now the government would have to listen to them more (before Tony Blai actually did have a bigger proportion of the public who supported him).

Every organisation needs to be accountable. To who, is an interesting question, and one that brings up the topic of stakeholders. Who are stakeholders, who are the most important, how can you represent them or engage with them, how can you be transparent with them and how can you ensure you do not operate as to create a conflict between stakeholders?

Responsible leaders need to pay close attention to these issues -they need to think about their accountability, and choose an option that is suitable. Unfortunately its harder to me more precise than that, since different types of organisations, and they are distinguished based on their accountability. Needless to say all organisations should ensure that the accountability method they have selected is working as intended. If not, maybe its time to reconsider. Who are you responsible for? How can you be responsible to them?

Africa...

SDN: promoting real sustainable development, "Let Africa fight its own devils".

Another hot topic, certainly, and one that focuses on how the rich can most help the poor. Leaders of the rich world have a responsibility to help others (it is in their best interest, as world leaders are finally realising, in regards to terrorism or immigration etc). How they do this, is in great dispute!

Most solutions focus on aid (in-kind or monetary) and technical support. Ironically a lot of this focuses on removing current processes that were put in place by rich countries to start with (such as trade barriers, debt and so on) -which shows how short-sighted the leaders who implemented them were.

I wanted to comment on this particular article, since one of the big changes in recent times has been that Aid agencies should work together towards common goals (!) and with the host country government (if possible); the aim is that the poor tell the rich what they need, and how that should be used. That sounds like a good idea. In the past, aid organisations presumed they knew best, and provided conditions on the support they gave (focused on reforms). This idea is now losing credibility; hoping that the poor will create the necessary reforms themselves (be them the same or different to what the rich have suggested/forced before).

This article argues along the free market lines, that actually what has most helped the poor in the past has been the free market, and supporting institutions. Should these exist, aid would not be needed (although it makes an exception for AIDS which is a 1-off 'first' in world history) to overcome poverty (over time), and any solutions would be long-term, natural and sustainable. Thus the rich should focus on providing the environment/framework/institions for countries to then develop themselves out of poverty. Certainly, they should remove the artificial restrictions they imposed (import tarrifs etc) before, but most importantly, they should aim to provide advice and change the institutions that are ineffective in much of Africa.

What should responsible leaders do when they want to do something, but no-one quite knows what the best way is to do it? Working in partnership with those they want to help is the obvious way to devise the solutions, however this has never happened before. The rich have never dealt with the poor -they just deal with those who supposedly 'represent' the poor. Now as NGOs grow more powerful (and presuming they can better represent the poor and be accountable to them), this could change -but the change is too slow.

The second thing is they should start with changing themselves. Set examples. As with the Tsunami, compete with each other as to who can hope the most, quickest! For so long, the rich have realised the impact of debt interest payments are having and the impact of trade restrictions...and what has happened? and what more is likely to happen? The answer is little (something will happen, but not enough for sure!), because we have to balance our own self-interests with our desire to help others. IF both these changes adversely affected the rich, so that they become worse off; then this would help no-one. the trick is that someone explains and creates a precise strategy for how to make these changes without long-term adverse changes.

That is the trick, but the crucial aspect, is that it requires some responsible leadership. It requires someone to start taking action, to do what they say, to acknowledge the consequences of their actions; to make decisions, to bravely set an example. Everyone talks about requiring more action; which is great, in theory. And example: The rich are discussing the World trade issue (Doha round in the WTO); great. They are even engaging different stakeholders in this, and even talking to the poor. But, it is not enough. Why only meet every 6 months? Why does the 'round' take years and not months?

Granted, the changes required are big, and need to be carefully managed. But if there was the will, then there would be a way. And right now, it is clear that the will does not exist, for a multitude of reasons, not to be discussed here. Responsible leadership requires determination, effort and a long-term vision. Not a short-term, selfish perspective.