English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

Private sector in post-conflict state buildingwith clear political goals, while others may be more usually inclined topartner with the public, rather than private sector.In case of Nepal, although in the recent years this relationship looks tohave improved somewhat, there is still much space for improvement –especially in the context of post-conflict situation. There have been someinitiatives from bodies such as the National Business Initiative (NBI), butprivate sector needs to do more than just try to shake hands with thedonors. While the donors have their own problems as discussed earlier,the private sector in general suffers with the image of not caring enoughfor the overall welfare of the society. It is often perceived that the businesscommunity lacks transparency and good business practices. The privatesector actors, it seems, always find the blame in the government for notbeing supportive enough, but they do not find time to look into their ownshortcomings. In order to improve their own image, they need to promotegreater transparency, get involved in more visible and meaningful socialresponsibilities, and practise more inclusive and ethical business. Despitechallenging times, the private sector has not only the business interest butalso the social responsibility to come forward and take the lead, ratherthan the other way round. We have seen around the world that privatesector initiatives have played meaningful and constructive roles in postconflictcountries.8. Examples of Sri-Lanka and South AfricaIt is worth, at this point, taking up some examples of the roles the privatesector has played in other conflict affected countries, namely Sri Lanka andSouth Africa. Despite a conflict that lasted for more than three decades,Sri Lanka has long been seen as a country with steady economic growth.As a result, for most of those conflict affected years, big business had littlemotivation to support peace building initiatives. However, this attitude ofindifference among big businesses changed with the bombing of ColomboInternational Airport in 2001 which, together with a devastating powercrisis in the same year, exposed the vulnerability of key business sectors tothe violence. The combined impact of the two events pushed the economyinto negative GDP growth, the first time this had occurred in all the yearsof war. Pressure mounted on business to do something, as the economiccosts of conflict became more evident. For the first time, members of theColombo corporate community joined in alliances to lobby for peace. Themost prominent of these ventures was Sri Lanka First (SLF) (Mayer andSalih 2006).56