Applying the "Creating Shared Value (CSV)" Concept During a Pandemic or Natural Disaster.

People are trying their best to help their fellow human during the pandemic. We have learned however from past events, this very noble intention ended up in prolonging or even creating many new forms of human made disasters that have pathetically not been originated from the pandemic or natural disaster itself.

Too much donation will paralyze the human in needs individually, the community recipient in general and the existing entrepreneurial small medium enterprises whose products and services are outnumbered by the free supplies flooded in the market by the donors. Without prejudice: not to mention probably many disappointing findings when audits were conducted in evaluating the conformity and the accountability when distributing the funds.

Some values I would like to share here that are derived from my courses in Harvard Business School in :

"Developing a CSR Strategy" taught by Prof. Kasturi Rangan et.al and "Creating Shared Value" taught by Prof. Michael Porter and Mark Kramer et.al.

1. Cautiously resurrect the philanthropic theatre : where we unavoidably must attend the time critical needs. Companies must prioritize the bottom of Maslow pyramids first to a. their employees, followed by b. their immediate value chain and c. the neigbourhood. For example to begin by responding to the short-term needs of specific segments, such as senior citizens and small businesses. The company through its charity foundation, if there is, wish to offer grants to help their children to pay probably a more expensive online education platform.
2. Focus on the company's operational theatre : their strategic intents that contains their core and functional expertise. An example worth to mention is 3M the creator of N95, where it has leveraged its surge capacity—built nearly 20 years ago during the SARS outbreak—to double its production of N95 respirators. Out of the 35 million respirators that 3M is producing per month in the U.S., more than 90% are designated for health care workers. (Iyer, 2020)
3. Think creatively about partners with a university, the product developed is not necessarily related to the core product of the company. A recent example is ".. a team of engineers from UCL (the University in London) and Formula One engine maker Mercedes-AMG HPP have been working flat out to manufacture large numbers of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device. This machine, similar to those commonly used to treat sleep apnea, can support patients with severe breathing problems, freeing up ventilators for the most critically ill. As with all things coronavirus related, speed is of the essence. The team has pulled off the task of moving from reverse-engineering an original product and producing a new design, through testing and regulatory approval to full-scale production in under 10 days. Mercedes repurposing its entire facility in Brixworth, Northampton to produce 1,000 breathing apparatus a day. The designs and manufacturing instructions have now been released, at no cost, to governments, manufacturers, academics and health experts around the world. Within a week they had been shared with more than 1,300 teams in 25 countries (Elwell, 2020)
4. Think creatively about partners with another corporation. An example of this would be :"3M and Ford are partnering to increase the production of 3M’s powered air-purifying respirators, which will use off-the-shelf components from the automaker’s F-150 truck’s cooled seating, as well as 3M’s existing HEPA filters. These respirators could potentially offer significant advantages in use compared to N95s, since they are battery-powered and can filter airborne virus particles for up to eight hours on a single, swappable, standard-power battery pack worn at the waist" (Iyer, 2020)
5. Assign their CVC to invest in external startups that rely on their agility in addressing the needs of the the most marginalized where they may need some capital to leverage their presence to address such confirmed pains from "captive" paying customers. Being a corporation they have leverage and access to assets datasets, or IP from partners like health organizations to understand where the pandemic is growing and which neighborhoods need the most support.
6. Invest in strategic partnership with small medium enterprises in providing commitment to buy and to absorb their products that is inline with the companies' core business and services. They may use their products to fulfill the spike demand or simply through their existing distribution channel to distribute the necessity products to the people in need. A hypothetical scenario would be for a textile company in Indonesia such as Sritex to order additional non medical masks or medical workers' PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment) from many tailors or fashion small medium enterprise industrial centers.
7. Spin out and spin off required numbers of new companies out of their R&D pipeline or out of their excess capacity, whose products and services are deemed mostly needed during the pandemic.
8. Feedback from a disaster management (Hodgkin, 2020):

As someone who has spent more than 20years working in disasters I agree with many of the points that you raised, but disagree with a few.

I totally agree that excess 'donations' aid can have a very damaging impact on the local economy. Mostly however this is due to false point of injection rather than the aid itself. The most common point of false injection is that of directly giving an affected family a physical product. Its easy to blame aid agencies for this but in reality it is driven by classic 'faith based' aid paradigms. In the christian version of this the aid giver feels the need to be seen as the 'good Samaritan'. They want to be seen to be generously giving out of the goodness of their heart and want the recipients to be seen to be gratefully receiving with humility and gratitude. In the Islamic equivalent of this faith based aid paradigm donors want to be seen to generously making a donation 'for allah' and aid workers to be seen to be working hard 'for allah' and recipients graciously receiving a gift 'from allah' . In this 'faith based aid paradigm it is irrelevant whether the actor is from the private or public sector, or in fact from a faith based group, the paradigm is the same. Aid is a photo opportunity for the donor, the giver and the receiver and in fact anyone else who facilitates along the way. It allows all of us to play a predefined role fulfilling the inherent expectations of our faith based aid paradigm. Under this paradigm everyone should pretend they are playing their role purely out of good intent, preferably for free out of the generosity of their heart, at the very least for a meagre ration on which to survive, preferably the same as what they are giving to others. They should live in a tent, eat rations, work extraordinary long hours and expect nothing in return. The christian model demands accountability procedures to ensure all actors play their deemed role and are 'accountable to each other, while under the Islamic model all actors are directly accountable to Allah. There will be a photo or media opportunity and every one will be happy. Aid will be distributed as quickly as possible with a focus on 'immediate life saving activities', which could otherwise be stated as 'high media profile' activities. Visibility of the aid organisation, and the donor is paramount. 

It is under the shadow of this oppressive 'faith based' paradigm that our global aid industry has grown and continues to struggle to exist. The impacts of this paradigm are intense and far reaching. It means that the aid industry struggles to maintain professionalism because people can only 'volunteer' for so long before they simply burn out, or quit to get a real job to pay the mortgage and put their kids through school. There is an endless supply of 'canon fodder', ie young and enthusiastic volunteers, interns and first timers, keen for an adventure, wanting to do good, but with little knowledge and experience. It means there is a shortage of seasoned professionals and most of those that do exist are bitter and twisted, suffering from differing forms of disillusionment, post traumatic stress and dislocation from normal society. Far too commonly they are unfit, have poor finances and damaged personal relationships, continuing on from disaster to disaster because it provides meaning and there is nowhere else they can fit. 

Under this traditional aid paradigm the common expectation is that 80-90% of the money donated (if not 100%) will go directly to the aid recipients, preferably in the form of goods to ensure that they, the recipients, don't waste the money on something that the donors didn't agree to. There is a new modern deviation on this paradigm that pushes that this gifting should be in 'cash' so recipients can chose, though most commonly this too is constrained with conditions imposed and tranches to ensure the recipients spend according to the desires of the donors. Effectively it is the same paradigm with 90+% of funding expected to go directly to the recipient. 

As you express in your article this aid paradigm blindly tromps all over the local economy, commonly creating aid dependency and slowing down, not speeding up recovery. A simple example is an aid agency giving out rice or instant noodles, making it impossible for the local rice shop to survive. In the cash version we see instead households buying low quality products which are the only thing available in the market or spending their funds on aid industry priorities instead of their own, such as buying building materials with vouchers at pre-determined shops, instead of fixing their motorbike or their pump so they can get back to work and buy more things more quickly with their own earnings than they can from the meagre donation they have received.

In reality it would be much more productive if the vast volumes of aid funding that came pouring in was much more strategically allocated. A small team of well embedded team of trained and experienced disaster specialists, could perhaps stop the mad rush to sew a million face masks for the community to wear, when until today the WHO continues to state that there is still no evidence that they have any positive affect and may in fact be net-negative. Lets not let private sector partnerships be driven by the desire to get industries 'doing something' with an attitude that 'anything is better than nothing' and instead professionalise the aid sector to design smarter interventions that form lasting partnerships and actually are net positive and lead into more rapid recovery.

As an example perhaps a small well embedded professional team, may be able to design interventions like helping government and non-government actors to partner better with the hospitality industry to utilise empty hotels and guesthouses as self isolation and quarantine facilities, instead of using public buildings like schools that are simply not intended for the purpose and potentially increase risk of transmission instead of reducing it. Instead of giving rice, three way partnerships could see government funds flowing to restaurants to cook meals for those in need, who could then buy them at hugely reduced cost with their own money or with financial assistance to the most vulnerable from non-goverment actors. Interventions like this can help maintain and in fact enhance existing market relationships and supply chains without creating total aid dependency or diverting companies to do something they dont usually do, hence creating difficulty in return to normal business further down the track. 

As another example three way partnerships in cyclone damaged communities could see high level interventions by government to halve the price of cyclone tie down straps, with private sector support for clever marketing that 'sells' the idea and explains how to use them, with hardware shop staff trained by non-government actors to give good advice, and 'sell appropriate solutions, with targeted vouchers supplied by NGOs for discounts on labour and materials for the most vulnerable such as the newly widowed. This could be far more effective than the classic aid paradigm of households waiting up to 2 years for government funds, while NGOs building houses for 5-10% of the community. 

In earthquake affected areas, smart phone based self-conducted damage assessments, designed in partnership with Telco's, could see households responding within hours or days of the quake to do an automated damage and impact assessment through a series of sms's. Respondents could supply photos of damage and some primary data that could be rapidly and remotely assessed by private sector engineers all around the country, who could then be held accountable through a simple complaints handling process. Direct market interventions by government with suppliers could then be used to reduce the price of high quality building products, which could do more to change the culture of construction than a few aid driven housing projects. For example funding steel manufacturers, and distributors to ensure that 10mm deformed steel reinforcing rod became cheaper to buy that 6mmm plain rod. This could then go hand in hand with NGOs and government working with advertising and marketing companies to explain and promote and convince people of the importance and fundamentals of building back safer. Funding could be provided to contractors to take on new apprentices, with training institutes assisted to develop more rapid on the job and smart phone based training to upgrade the skills of existing building workers for more earthquake resistant construction, as well as training new workers. Finally NGOs could step in and assist the government to enforce the existing building code, rather than imposing their own redesigned house plans or technologies on unwitting householders. People could and should then be able to build whatever shape and size of house suits their family and its needs rather than following some specific and alien design or technology imposed upon them. Who cares what shape it is, or what its built from, as long as it conforms to code.

To do any or all of this the aid industry needs to professionalise. It needs to stop being dependant on short term volunteers engaged in a boom bust cycle, and instead of permanent staff with ongoing professional development and long term relationships with government. The sector needs better engagement between the private, public and third social sector actors. It needs a lower percentage of funding going directly to beneficiaries, with a much higher percentage going into much cleverer, multi-faceted, hands off tripartite interventions.

Aid cannot be based purely on capitalism, because capitalism is based too largely on a paradigm or profit and greed. It can no-longer be based so heavily on the faith based paradigm of giving and receiving out of goodness of heart, as this creates aid dependency, reduces professionalism and actually slows down recovery. It cant be based solely on government interventions of a nanny state ordaining predefined answers for all citizens with military interventions and dogmatism. It needs to get much more professional, be much more nuanced and needs some much bigger discussions and partnership between all three sectors."

References :

Rangan, Kasturi, Lisa Chase, and Sohel Karim. "The Truth about CSR." Harvard Business Review 93, nos. 1/2 (January–February 2015): 40–49.

Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. "Creating Shared Value." Harvard Business Review 89, nos. 1-2 (January–February 2011): 62–77.

Elwell, C. (2020). Racing to save lives: How Mercedes F1 developed a lifesaving COVID-19 breathing aid. Retrieved 25 April 2020, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-ucl-mercedes-covid19-cpap-health-engineering

Lakshmi Iyer (2020). What Can We Learn from Early Corporate Responses to COVID-19? | FSG. Retrieved 25 April 2020, from https://www.fsg.org/blog/what-can-we-learn-early-corporate-responses-covid-19utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=April%20Corporate%20Digest&utm_content=April%20Corporate%20Digest+CID_8eb86e3c9cad955b4cb5caecd34d185a&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=What%20Can%20We%20Learn%20from%20Early%20Corporate%20Responses%20to%20COVID-19

Dave Hodgkin (2020), Feedback on Your Article, Personal WhatsApp Message.