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Working on a cause with the public sector is hard work, but worth the effort, says Peter Bakker, CEO of TNT, Netherlands, ahead of World Food Day on 16 October.
Public-private partnerships I Interactive map: Global hunger
 The Forum believes that partnerships with business can accelerate progress towards meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. What do you think the private sector can do to reduce chronic hunger?
Businesses are not humanitarian organizations, but to a certain extent they should feel and take the responsibility to fight hunger or poverty in general. The world is facing many environmental and man made disasters with significant effects on mankind. Either the causes or the effects of these have strong links with the issue of poverty/hunger. The response from the private sector can be highly effective when companies apply their core competencies to fighting poverty and hunger - not only in direct relief, but also in improving the capacity of those organizations that are traditionally positioned to fight poverty and hunger.
In our case the partnership we have in place with the United Nations World Food Programme is an outstanding example of the additional value that a company can bring. We help WFP to respond faster and more efficiently by making our transportation and expertise available. But also employees can play a role beyond that. We have more than 160,000 employees working in many countries in the world. Mobilizing them as advocates to drive the political will to resolve the issue of hunger is another way of accelerating progress towards meeting the first MDG.
We are doing that together with WFP by organizing a large awareness and fund raising event called ‘Walk the World’. Imagine how politicians would react when millions of employees in companies worldwide stand up and say ‘we don’t want this anymore, you should do something about this with our money’. When the commitment to spend 0.8% of the rich world’s GDP becomes a reality, the first MDG will be met!
And what is the current level of business involvement in reducing hunger? Is business active enough on this issue or could it be doing more?
We realize that in our partnership with WFP we can do a lot related to our core competencies and our financial muscle. However, on the scale of what is actually needed, and also in terms of the specific needs from WFP, our company cannot provide all of this. Therefore, right from the start, we’re trying to engage other global companies in a partnership with the WFP - very successful so far!
Where TNT was the first private sector donor three years ago, WFP now has support from companies like the Boston Consulting Group, Citigroup, PepsiCo, Unilever and others.
What holds companies back? And what is the deciding factor for them to get involved?
The easy answer here is ‘I don’t know’.
Companies might not see the value of doing something to reduce hunger. For them it might help to share the lessons that we have learned in our partnership. I was surprised by the level of engagement of our employees and the pride that this partnership has instilled in them. That’s not bad for a service company that strongly relies on the people that work for TNT.
It’s not easy to build the business case for CSR [corporate social responsibility] but in our case it feels more than good, and that’s where intuition overrides the rationale. That’s also the answer to your second question. A certain level of emotional connectivity with serving a good cause is a good starting point. Other companies might find their drive at the bottom of the pyramid.
From a business perspective, where are the opportunities and pitfalls in addressing the problem of chronic hunger? (read more on the successes and challenges of public-private partnerships)
Making public-private partnerships work is hard work - from both ends. The cultures in most cases are very different and short term results are not always easily measured. In general, the metrics that the private sector uses are much more developed because of the highly competitive environment they work in. Humanitarian organizations, where they make use of metrics, are much more focused on the impact they are making in the field rather than measuring their effectiveness. In the first place they are there to save and improve lives.
From the private sector’s perspective it will take some time to make it work and it’s wise to search for some low hanging fruit to share first successes in an early stage. Building partnerships on a win-win basis makes them sustainable. This sounds easy but is extremely sensitive because companies need to fight a certain (sometimes even a significant) level of distrust within their partner organization. Their starting point many times still is that companies are getting into this for the wrong reasons. Maybe we deserve this reputation as a sector, considering our behaviour from the past.
How do you think the World Economic Forum can contribute?
Fighting poverty or hunger is an extremely complex issue because of the many actors in the playing field, the different causes of poverty and hunger and the local perspective. In Davos and at the regional meetings the Forum is already offering a platform for engagement of these different actors.
The challenge for the Forum is to bring the talk into action. TNT will then certainly be part of that action.
The Forum is currently undertaking an analysis of specific opportunities for business engagement by a wide range of industries (including food/beverage, supermarkets, agribusiness, IT, infrastructure, media) that will help reduce hunger. This will form part of a brief analysis of "what business can do to help achieve the MDGs" that will be presented at the next Annual Meeting in Davos.
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