Corporates for Crisis is an initiative to help the business world gain direct access to humanitarian projects, writes John Willman

WHEN THE elders of Garmser in the Afghan province of Helmand were seeking to restore security to the region, they asked the provincial governor for help to resume market gardening. Growing food would provide work for hundreds of people, support their families and provide an alternative to the Taliban. All they required was a modest amount of finance to restore water supplies and generate power - but at that time, in 2006, the governor had no funds.

For Brigadier Ed Butler, then commander of British forces in southern Afghanistan, it was a tale he had heard time and again in his army career - in Iraq, in Africa and in the Balkans. In his view, government organisations and non-government organisations are good at long-term projects, but for quick, short-term intervention only companies have the agility and the entrepreneurial skills.

"A business could have kick-started the local economy in Garmser," he says. "It would have taken fighters off the streets and provided money to restabilise the community."

But while many international companies donate money to NGOs in the emerging or frontier markets where they operate, few become directly involved. This, he believes, is due to lack of expertise. But by intervening, Butler asserts, businesses could encourage local stability as well as enhance their reputations.

He is stepping down as chief of the UK's Joint Force Operations to become managing director of Corporates for Crisis, a company set up to help businesses become directly involved in development and humanitarian operations. CforC will help companies use their business skills to identify, design and implement community projects, rather than simply writing cheques for charities.

"We will be a genuine 'boots and suits' organisation," says Butler. "Our teams will provide an unusual mix of entrepreneurial business minds, humanitarian conviction, development expertise, military planning and operational precision."

Support for organisations that work in remote or difficult places, such as that offered by CforC, is a growing business.

The idea for CforC was dreamt up by Christopher James, who founded Hakluyt in 1994 after leaving MI6, to provide strategic advice and intelligence for companies. Talking to the chairmen and chief executives of Fortune 50 companies after the Asian tsunami of December 2004, he found they had donated millions to the relief operations but had no idea how the money had been spent.

When he retired in 2006, he decided to find a way to bring the corporate world more directly into such efforts. "Rather than just giving money, they could invest in the affected people and communities - helping them set themselves up again," he says.

Butler is one of three directors James recruited to turn this idea into a business that would intervene in crises and in fragile post-conflict areas. The others are Sahar Hashemi, the serial entrepreneur who founded Coffee Republic with her brother Bobby, and Hugo Slim, who has more than 20 years of experience in the humanitarian sector.

After 25 years in the army, including a spell in the British special forces, Butler was interested in a job that would let him see more of his young family and he found the CforC concept intriguing. "Having spent a lot of time in crisis situations, I have seen the big gap between what the military is able to do and what the international community has to offer. If the army can create a secure environment, business can quickly restore activity by employing people, paying their wages and supporting their families."

Slim says he has seen exactly the same problem from the NGO perspective, while working for Save The Children and the UN, serving on the Oxfam council and acting as consultant to organisations such as the British Red Cross. "Companies could be incredibly important players as strategic partners for NGOs in emerging markets," he says.

Hashemi sees her role as bringing an entrepreneur's eye to the needs of corporate clients and helping to bring them closer to the communities they operate in. Companies "often don't get the chance to use their entrepreneurial DNA", she says. "If they can go beyond aid to building infrastructure and sustainable businesses, they can provide the tools for people to help themselves."

CforC says it has met the chairmen or chief executives of more than 20 FTSE 100 companies, and is involved in several assignments. Two projects are already under way in Africa. Backed by a handful of private investors, two of whom have invested sums totalling just over £1 million (€1.3 million), it expects to build a staff of 20 within three years, and a much larger network of experts who can be deployed to countries on particular projects.

"There is plenty of space for business if they approach such markets with the right help," says Butler. -