Assessing peace and social impacts through local human security business partnerships

Abstract

As competing guidelines and standards to encourage responsible business behavior and social impact management proliferate (e.g., the Do No Significant Harm principle and ESG standards), companies and investors are struggling to define basic concepts and devise usable methodologies for operating in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Objectives are framed using large, general terms like peace and sustainable development. Even organizations that aspire to positive social and environmental impacts toward peacebuilding find their ambitions thwarted when global frameworks must be translated into the messy and chaotic conditions on the ground. In this article, we outline an approach using forward-looking human security partnerships between business and local stakeholders to identify and assess the potential peace value and risks of business interventions as they materialize over time. Next, we outline lessons from Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and suggest how businesses can use novel governance arrangements to design and measure social impacts that build peace via improvements to human security.