The Business Case for Building Resilience and Pursuing Peace

When conflicts arise, the private sector can suffer staggering losses — especially small and medium-sized enterprises. While the business community has at times negated peace efforts, there is a strong rationale for engaging the private sector in violence prevention.

At the Stanley Center’s 59th annual Strategy for Peace Conference, October 17-19, 2018, participants in the roundtable “The Business Case for Building Resilience and Pursuing Peace” agreed that private sector actors have a critical role in promoting stable, resilient societies. Participants explored the existing research and rationales that support private sector engagement, discussed the current frameworks for analysis, and brainstormed how to communicate the importance of peacebuilding to the private sector. The discussion was driven by two primary questions:

• How does the peacebuilding community engage the private sector in this work?
• Once the private sector is engaged, how can the peacebuilding community effectively guide their actions?

Participants stressed that the peacebuilding community should engage the private sector at many different levels, and develop clear and concise messaging to entice the private sector to this work.