Читать книгу Empresas en el Conflicto Armado : Aportes a la Construcción de la paz en Colombia - Mary Martin Beth - Страница 34

The role of companies as a key player in conflict settings is a question that has been the subject of intense study and controversy in recent decades. Indeed, much of the literature regards companies as the engine or key factor in generating or perpetuating conflicts¹. Yet other more recent currents of thinking describe companies’ potential role in building peace, promoting development, and fostering human rights within their area of influence². They uphold that private enterprise, especially locally-owned businesses, is indispensable in order to create jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in the long term and that international aid alone is often incapable of breaking the cycle of conflict and poverty³.

This unprecedented vision is not bereft of its own critics, and some claim that corporate short-term interests and past history are incompatible with the structural economic, societal and political changes that divided societies often need. Moreover, some recent empirical findings show that a wide majority of companies remain unaware of the different ways to engage in peace-building processes or of the different kinds of role they could play⁴.

Nevertheless, as discussed in this chapter, there are significant examples of companies that have undertaken peace-building initiatives in fragile settings, thus playing an increasing role in issues that affect global governance. Not only has the private sector participated in formal peace processes⁵ but it has also shown high potential for social and economic reconstruction. All these activities illustrate the dynamics of the changes that are taking place between the state, the economy and civil society⁶, the consequent decentralisation of authority and the emergence of power in the hands of non-state actors⁷.

Without entering an in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of this involvement, in this chapter we will examine the peace-building potential of the business sector, and then see how this relates to evidence from the Colombian experience that emerged from the 2016 peace agreement. It will end with the presentation of the Human Security Business Partnership (HSBP) Framework, understood as an innovative model of multi-actor governance in fragile settings that would encourage and structure a more pro-active engagement role for the corporate sector. Thus the chapter addresses two emerging questions in the discourse about corporate peacebuilding: the modalities of positive interventions by the private sector in the context of a peace process and the circumstances and conditions under which private business might contribute to positive transformations from conflict to peace. While the findings are not conclusive, the Colombian experience points to areas for further research and empirical evidence building which will increase understanding of the private sector role in conflict⁸.