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Position Paper on ’Incentivising Shared Value’
The Australia-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce (AMCC) and the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) launched a Position Paper on ‘Incentivising Shared Value’ at the Myanmar Business Roundtable of the Asian CSR Forum in Naypidaw on 19 September 2016.
The paper is a product of the AMCC's Responsible Investment Working Group which Vicky Bowman, Director of MCRB, co-chairs.
The Working Group’s membership consists of leaders from prominent Australian and Myanmar businesses, non-governmental organisations, and an ex-officio Australian Government representative. It was created to discuss what responsible business means in Myanmar and how companies can work with stakeholders, including the Myanmar Government, to promote it.
The Position Paper highlights debates and good practices related to encouraging responsible business and social innovation by companies. It argues that an emphasis on how much a company will spend on ‘CSR’ (a term MCRB prefers not to use because it is understood in so many different ways) fails to recognise and incentivise responsible company behaviour and quality social investment. The Paper is available in English and Burmese.
At the launch, Vicky Bowman chaired a panel comprising members of the Working Group to talk about their experiences of creating shared value and partnerships to do so. Sett Hlaing, General Manager, KBZ Bank and Counsel, KBZ Group of Companies spoke about KBZ’s work on providing internship, training and employment opportunities for university students and people with disabilities, and also rethinking their services to PWDs. Lourens Roets, Head of Strategy and Operations, spoke about the AIA Vitality programme which incentivises customers of AIA insurance to stay fit and healthy through health food vouchers and fitness incentivises as well as their Healthy Living Index which looks at patterns of health across the region, including environmental factors such as pollution, to incentivise action to address problems for health.
Stav Zotalis, Country Director, CARE Myanmar talked about their partnership with pharmaceuticals company GSK in Myanmar to train health workers which is able to benefit from CARE’s decades of on the ground experience in Myanmar. She highlighted the importance of long-term commitment to a partnership and shared values between company and NGO as essential to success. Under its 20% Reinvestment Initiative, GSK commits 20% of its profits in least-developed countries to strengthen community health systems and improve access to basic health through supporting training of frontline health workers in these countries.
