Competitiveness & Innovation

Over the past year through the Competitiveness and Innovation programme, AICC began working on its Southern Africa Corporate Citizenship Programme – a two-year project funded by NOVIB (Oxfam Netherlands). The programme was conceived around the challenges and opportunities that exist regarding business community interactions and the role businesses can play in development, inter-alia the role civil society could play in facilitating or aiding this outcome. The programme is being undertaken in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

The AICC’s objectives in this programme are to:

1) Strengthen institutional capacity of organs of civil society to engage corporations on CSR issues in Southern Africa, with an emphasis on individual countries, and
2) Facilitate corporate community dialogue.

Through local partners and researchers, the AICC has started a journey of capacity building and working in partnership with other NGOs (including BOCONGO, CORDE, LECONGO, Lesotho Community Development Foundation, TECS, FDC, CTA, NANGOF, CED, MWENGO, Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) and Rossing Foundation) on the issue of corporate citizenship.

AICC’s Southern Africa Corporate Citizenship Programme
AICC corporate citizenship programme is a capacity building and advocacy project. The overall aim of this initiative is to provide a platform that brings business, government and civil society together in a manner that facilitates and promotes the development of best practice in the field of corporate citizenship across the African continent, in this case focusing and starting with Southern Africa.

AICC in partnership with other NGOs in Southern Africa and support of NOVIB (Oxfam Netherlands) is doing work on capacitating Southern African civil society organizations to engage corporations individually and collectively, locally and regionally, and to catalyze improved corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and good corporate citizenship. The programme focuses on identifying and addressing the capacity gaps for NGO and private sector engagements on CSR and in order to facilitate productive partnerships and responses. Over the past two years, AICC has undertaken this programme in six Southern African countries, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Lesotho
In Lesotho, the AICC CSR Programme worked in conjunction with the Lesotho Community Development Foundation (LCD). In particular, the engagement explored:

- the vitality of investments and growth of community development funds and projects; and

- job losses – crises and possible replacements – in the textile sector; and also

- the particular strain of HIV/AIDS on women often after being released from factory employment, and on men after being retrenched from the mines

In order to address these challenges, the workshop looked at utilizing the collective pool of funds within the LCD to develop a community bank and to spearhead community investment. Through a pilot project in the agriculture sector, notably in dairy, piggery, poultry and cultivation, such a partnership between the LCD and the financial community is being explored as a means to address the above challenges.

Mozambique
From the workshop presentations and discussions it was agreed that a common understanding of CSR in Mozambique was needed. Participants felt that the Mozambique Global Compact Forum would play a pivotal role in this regard. A very key discussion point during the workshop was on ownership of natural resources, their exploitation and benefits that accrue to Mozambican citizens. Workshop participants felt that the definition of the CSR in the country should take into consideration the question of ownership of natural resources.

The engagement in Mozambique primarily emphasized:

- concern over public image and national prestige impacting on business performance and development;

- lack of a model and implementation of strategic partnerships between government, civil society and the private sector to combat poverty; and

- communicating NGO’s causes, missions, goals and activities to promote the business case for development.

The suggested outcomes for successful partnerships between NGOs and companies in Mozambique included looking at resource ownership and particularly at company and/or community resource ownership. Such partnerships would highlight concrete education, capacity building, and leadership development, alongside lobbying, advocacy and strategy.

Namibia
In Namibia the workshop highlighted the concentration of CSR in traditional philanthropy or charity. It also showcased the relative lack of participation of local communities in the CSR agenda compared to the powerful influence of multi-national corporations, consumers, investors and governments based in developed countries. Furthermore, there are few links between private sector initiatives and public policy implementations of CSR innovations. Given this lack of untapped partnership potential and linkages, the outcomes of the Namibia workshop offer a variety of opportunities:

- a national CSR education campaign to build a common understanding of CSR in Namibia;

- a collaborative public-private engagement initiative to focus on increasing awareness of and buy-into of increased, transparent accountability and reporting; and a

- particular focus on HIV/AIDS in CSR.

Zimbabwe
The workshop was conducted in association with Environment Africa (www.eafrica.utande.co.zw) and MWENGO (www.mwengo.org).

The current situation in Zimbabwe has an impact on CSR practice in the country. Hence, workshop participants questioned the value of CSR given the current difficult economic climate in Zimbabwe. As a result, the workshop focused on the opportunities available in linking NGO activity across a variety of sectors, to corporate involvement, which would spur both accountability and CSR in accordance with mainstream economic activity.

Workshop participants indicated that there are a number of already existing CSR related initiatives in Zimbabwe that could be linked together into one initiative. A sustainable livelihoods campaign was proposed as a mechanism for doing this. Workshop participants felt that there was a need to have projects that deal with:

a) Agriculture

b) Health, notably HIV/AIDS

c) Art and Craft promotion

d) Water and Waste Management

In moving forward, emphasis is being placed on mutually beneficial partnerships and on mobilizing stakeholders to enhance the efficacy of CSR in Zimbabwe.

South African companies’ Corporate Responsibility in Africa
The African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) is conducting a project to facilitate an informed and inclusive debate on how South African companies can supported in conducting their business in Africa responsibly, and in a manner that supports the objectives of NEPAD.

The project is divided into three phases. Phase one consists of a briefing document based on a literature review and interviews with a range of stakeholders. The second phase consists of a practitioners’ workshop (view the presentations - Presentation 1, Presentation 2, Presentation 3, Presentation 4) which will allow for an effective exchange of information and perceptions regarding the project objectives. The last phase consists of a high-level roundtable for decision-making representatives of key stakeholder groups to discuss the recommendations of the practitioners’ workshop, and seeking commitment to a way forward.

Linking corporate responsibility to competitiveness and sustainability - Lesotho textile industry
The African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC), as part of its Responsible Competitiveness programme, aims to understand and enhance the inter-relationship between corporate responsibility and the competitiveness of regions, sectors, and nations in Southern Africa. The programme is guided by the hypothesis that improved corporate responsibility in areas such as labour relations, community engagement, environmental management, and human rights can contribute to various aspects of competitiveness including improved productivity, market access, and reputation. As part of the programme, the AICC seeks to develop and support targeted learning networks, comprising key role-players in order to distil important lessons, raise awareness and capacity, and develop tangible options for action. As such, the AICC conceived a project that will link into and support other initiatives (including ComMark Trust and Maquila Solidarity Network) whose aim is to address the challenges currently facing the Lesotho textile sector, focusing on the potential for improving the competitiveness of the industry through, enhanced corporate responsibility.

ISO SR guidance standard
The AICC is participating in the ISO 26000 (Social Responsibility guidance standard) building process as an international D-Liaison organisation representing NGOs. AICC is also a co-convenor of the Interim Task Group 4 on Stakeholder Engagement. The ISO Social Responsibility guidance standard is aimed at all types of organisations including governments, small and medium enterprises and NGOs.

Completed projects
CSR Framework for the Angolan oil sector: Together with the World Bank, AICC is currently working in a partnership with the Government of Angola to establish a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework for the oil sector. An important part of the process is to identify the shared strategic priorities of the Government of Angola, the oil companies and relevant stakeholders as they relate to CSR activities, and to establish the contributions and roles of the public and private sector and civil society. For more information please contact Paul Kapelus.

Responsible Competitiveness: AICC is currently developing a research project in partnership with Upstart Business Strategies to consider whether there is a business case for the successful promotion of a corporate responsibility cluster within the textile industries of Lesotho and Swaziland with the aim of ensuring a sustainable development of the industries and at the same time ensuring the competitiveness of the industries on an international level. For more information please contact Sean de Cleene.

ISO Strategic Advisory Group on CSR: AICC is working with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Recursos e Investigacion para el Desarrollo Sustanable (Chile) (RIDES), Development Alternatives (India) (DA) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) to build understanding of the implications of potential ISO engagement in the CSR agenda by providing input to the ISO CSR initiative through engaging with our networks and feeding into the process. As part of this process, AICC in partnership with South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) will be launching a research and stakeholder framework to establish the CSR standard in South Africa from a legal perspective. For more information please contact Paul Kapelus.

Conversations with disbelievers: Conversations with disbelievers is a web-based conversation that envisages encouraging managers, nonprofits and researchers to contribute their material to the growing dialogue on the business case for corporate citizenship. This stems from a publication by John Weiser and Simon Zadek �Conversations with Disbelievers� whose aim was to encourage business to address their corporate social responsibility. The aim of these conversations is to convince those managers who doubt that increased engagement with society will help achieve their business and provide a platform to engage with the disbelievers in order to understand why the currently available studies often are not persuasive, what types of evidence are most convincing and how this evidence can be communicated effectively. The Initiative is managed by the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability. AICC provides input from South African business into this initiative. The initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation. For more information please contact Nkosithabile Ndlovu or Paul Kapelus.

Role of South African Companies operating in Africa: AICC is presently developing a research project to explore the role of South African companies operating in other African countries. The investigation focuses on the following issues: The activities that these companies are involved with in the African countries they are operating in; companies engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Africa; code of conduct for working in Africa; sustainability reporting (performance in social and environmental issues); social investment (philanthropy); transparency and accountability (corporate governance). For more information please contact Paul Kapelus.

Community Development Strategies for the Mining Industry: AICC is working on a project for the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) to review and advance current thinking within the mining industry as to the what�s and how�s of developing site-specific community development strategies and management systems. It is intended that the final outputs of this pilot project will be practical reference documents, whose application will help mineral-related investments contribute to the improvement of living standards and sustainable development. The project is commissioned by the ICMM and sponsored by the World Bank Group. The project reports will be published at the end of the project. For more information please contact: Mokhethi Moshoeshoe; Markus Reichardt; or Sean de Cleene.

Corporate Citizenship Management Rating: Together with Trialogue, AICC is working to develop a toolkit for auditing and benchmarking the state of corporate citizenship management across the organisation integrating practices, methods, and the extent to which it is integrated and embedded within it. For more information please contact Paul Kapelus.

Sustainable Funding Strategy: AICC is working on a project for CARE South Africa/Lesotho to develop a sustainability framework for their funding strategy. CARE and AICC will publish the methodology in order to advance this kind of engagement amongst other NGO�s. For more information please contact Paul Kapelus.

What is the relationship between competitiveness and innovation?

Innovation

Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved idea, good, service, process or practice which is intended to be useful.

Until recently, the most popular view of innovation was that of new products and processes, world-class inventions that are technologically driven. Today’s organisations view innovation as capturing, developing and implementing new ideas. They see innovation is about doing things differently.

Competitiveness

Competitiveness is the ability of a nation or firm to sell competitive goods or services in international trade. Several aspects of competitiveness are involved in shaping international trade patterns.

Competitiveness is usually used in reference to an organisation, sector, region or even a nation. Being competitive is about being ahead of your peers and being innovative gives this edge. Corporations [organisations] that say we cannot continue to do what we used to do the same and are approaching sustainability creatively get ahead of their competitors.

The relationship between competitiveness and innovation.

The relationship between competitiveness and innovation is that, for a firm or nation to be competitive there is a need to produce new goods and ideas through the use of new technology that reduces the cost of production. Therefore trough the use of highly technical material and the employment of new and effective ideas in the production of goods, services and knowledge, firms and nations are able to exhibit high levels of competitiveness in the international arena.

In the light of sustainability companies are required to engage in the most advance technological production, that is the use of more sophisticated technology in the production process and also technology that is environmentally friendly. Also a company needs to train it staff members so that they are able to develop innovative ways of producing goods and services, which means that for companies to stay ahead of its competitors it will need to explore more innovative ways of doing business. In conclusion for company to be always ahead of its competitors, it will need to engage in more innovative ways of doing business.

African Corporate Sustainability Forum | Centre for Sustainability Investing | Competitiveness & Innovation | ReportCom