Trade, peace, and the business case for improved humanitarian response
Vaeme Afokpa is the External Engagement Lead-USA at International Chamber of Commerce
In a fragmenting world, there is still one area where you can find consensus among world leaders, heads of corporations, and philanthropists: the need for humanitarian relief to be significantly improved. Far too many humanitarian crises are taking place in tandem, and they cannot be solved by governments alone. Already in 2024, the need is record-high with 300 million people requiring humanitarian assistance and protection globally (according to UN OCHA).
Trade as a vector for peace
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) was created in 1919 in the ashes of WWI and founded by visionaries who saw trade as a path to peace. Since then, ICC has been the representative voice of business in multilateral forums developing and promoting standards across the globe, enhancing transparency and building trust in the global trading system.
As a steadfast supporter of the multilateral system, and by extension, the work of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) we are concerned by the proliferation of unilateral and protectionist trade interventions across the global economy. The net effect of this trend – from a real economy perspective – is to undermine economic resiliency, inhibit job creation and exacerbate global inequalities.
Through the co-hosted Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation ICC has helped facilitate the movement of critical humanitarian goods across borders to help vulnerable communities in times of crisis, ensuring that aid is administered efficiently and speeding up economic recovery.
For example, in Mozambique, the Alliance helped streamline the pre-shipment approval process for critical medical equipment, especially rapid test kits (RTKs) for diagnosis of HIV/AIDS and malaria. The new system improved product traceability, mitigating the risk of delays because of misplaced, incorrect, or damaged paperwork, enabling these critical goods to reach vulnerable people, including children, more quickly.
In this context the pivotal role of business in responding to disasters and crises is not theoretical.
The cost of extreme weather events
Disasters are increasing in their frequency. Taking climate-related events alone, a newly published report from ICC and Oxera estimates economic losses at $2 trillion in 2023 prices (based on nearly 4,000 events across six continents from 2014 to 2023).
These estimates reflect physical asset destruction as well as human capital losses from premature deaths. The scale of devastation is enormous: approximately 1.6 billion people have been directly affected.
The economic toll of a single extreme weather event on smaller, vulnerable nations can be especially severe, in some cases eclipsing a country’s entire annual output. For example, we estimate that Hurricane Maria in 2017 had an economic cost equivalent to over 300% of Dominica’s gross value added (GVA) for that year.
Figure 1. The regional distribution of populations vulnerable to climate shocks
Note: The percentage presented represent the proportion of the total population in each region exposed to any type of shock, using data from World Bank Group research. ‘Other high income’ represents mostly high-income economies, that are excluded from the geographical regions and are included as a separate group. These are described as ‘industrialised economies’, or ‘rest of the world’ and includes countries such as the US.
Source: Oxera analysis of World Bank Group (2023), ‘counting people exposed to, vulnerable to, or at high risk from climate shocks’.
Responding to disasters
Over the past few years, we have received pleas for help from our global network – floods in Brazil, earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, hurricanes in the Caribbean. While each disaster is unique, our global network in over 170 countries network – businesses, local offices, chambers of commerce – has rallied each time, providing expert resources, connecting communities, to deliver beyond the fundraising call to action.
And each time, the same situation on the ground has been reported: data platforms cannot be linked together, aid is siloed between various agencies and nonprofits, goods delivered end up being useless due to duplication leading to waste, and recovery takes too long. Too often, a seamless public-private partnership for humanitarian relief remains a pipe dream.
This no longer needs to be the norm. The Private Sector Humanitarian Alliance (PSHA), officially launched on 25th September at the United Nations General Assembly, seeks to close that coordination gap. As a founding member of the Alliance, ICC is excited to contribute to the newest innovation within the global humanitarian architecture: a single-entry point for businesses.
“We must see improved integration of the private sector into the humanitarian architecture to sustain peace and security in the face of increasingly complex global challenges.”
John WH Denton AO, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce.
Multi-stakeholder engagements demonstrate the value of meaningfully integrating the private sector as a collaborative partner
ICC at the UN
The International Chamber of Commerce is the only private sector organisation with a seat at the table in the United Nations and has seen firsthand the positive impact of bringing the global business community into the fold of the United Nations. Effective mobilization of the private sector is needed to centre innovation at the heart of decision-making.
This collaborative approach is what enabled the successful delivery of the Black Sea Grain Deal through the UN Global Crisis Response Group, of which ICC was a key member. Multi-stakeholder engagements demonstrate the value of meaningfully integrating the private sector as a collaborative partner.
The Private Sector Humanitarian Alliance
The Private Sector Humanitarian Alliance is a coalition of businesses and humanitarian organisations, linked through a tech platform that effectively relays local needs identified during a crisis and matches those needs to unique private sector resources and expertise. Stakeholders across sectors can work together sharing information and expertise, all in real-time.
The Alliance is not starting from a blank canvas. Already, the Alliance has been successfully testing processes and platform, showcasing value. Since September 2023 – when the Alliance was announced as an initiative during the UN Security Council Debate on Public-Private Partnerships – this growing coalition of diverse partners has jumped into action to address a range of crises around the world.
In June, the Alliance conducted a pilot simulation in Barbados which was co-organized by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Five days later, Hurricane Beryl made landfall over Grenada. Connecting in-person and by group chat, stakeholders coordinated their response, gave local updates in real-time, and refined the ask for the private sector as the situation transition from immediate response to rebuilding.
Those in the room included the UN OCHA, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Alliance’s member companies, as well as national disaster management authorities and chambers of commerce.
Sadly, Hurricane Beryl resulted in fatalities and widespread damage though evaluation of the response to-date indicates that preparation and coordination did help mitigate the disaster. Lessons from this catastrophe have strengthened the Alliance’s preparedness for future events.
Why should the humanitarian world bring in the private sector? From a baseline standpoint, business communities are not immune to disasters nor the crises they leave in their wake. It becomes common business sense to join the response, save lives and communities, as well as prevent further deterioration or instability.
Beyond that, ICC ensures that affected local private sectors have the support they need to recover and build resiliency. This is fundamentally at the core of ICC’s own purpose to enable business to secure peace, prosperity and opportunity for all, as envisioned by the industrialist founders, known as ‘Merchants of Peace’.
Many companies would be keen to join a multi-stakeholder response that is better coordinated and more efficient, hoping to s eliminate siloed approaches that create barriers for businesses wanting to engage with the humanitarian architecture. There is still work to do in tackling humanitarian crises. The good news is that we are finally a few steps closer.
