Patrick Cescau

It is now seven years since the UN Global Compact was launched and first called upon the public and private sectors to work together to tackle global issues such as poverty, hunger, malnutrition and infectious diseases. The call to action to create a “global partnership for development” stemmed from the recognition that these problems are so huge, complex and multifaceted that they cannot be solved solely through the actions of either the public or private sector alone.
 
Business has always played a key role in economic development. Through international trade and job creation it makes a significant contribution to poverty reduction. But business has both the capacity and the desire to do more, particularly in helping to tackle social and environmental challenges. For this to happen however, the relationship between the public and private sectors has to change.

Traditionally, the role of business has been to act as a corporate donor to public sector organizations. For some companies that have neither the products nor the scale to do more, this will continue to be the only effective means of making a contribution. But for the majority of multinational companies, simply making philanthropic donations in return for intangible corporate reputation benefits is no longer enough. This type of support is neither sustainable nor scalable. Crucially, it fails to capitalize on the specific skills and capabilities that business can bring to bear in working with the public sector to tackle social and environmental challenges.

Instead, a new approach to public-private partnership is needed that leverages the different competencies and resources of each partner, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Public sector organizations have strengths and experience in providing humanitarian relief, delivering healthcare interventions where they are most needed and a unique ability to act as convenors between the different actors in society. Private sector organizations have complementary strengths. They have products and services that address public health and education requirements, technical and logistical expertise and communication skills. Consumer goods companies, in particular, are connected through their brands to vast communities of people and have the ability and expertise to influence behaviour change in a way that governments can find hard to achieve.

For this new partnership approach to succeed, both sectors have to recognize that each partner has different and legitimate objectives that have to be met and both sectors need to work together as equal partners to achieve common goals and mutually beneficial results.

For example, Unilever and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) have signed a partnership agreement to strengthen the WFP School Feeding Programme. Unilever not only donates money, it also shares its nutrition and hygiene expertise and supports health education campaigns. The partnership addresses the needs of poor schoolchildren in Ghana, Kenya, Indonesia and Colombia, and at the same time improves the credentials of our Blue Band and Rama margarine brands. It also raises awareness in developed countries of hunger and malnutrition as issues – a key goal for the WFP.

Lifebuoy's "glowgerm" demonstration counters the common misconception that  "visibly clean" is "hygienically clean"

In India our Lifebuoy soap brand is working with government, NGOs, women’s groups and other civic partners to teach children and adults in rural villages to wash their hands with soap in order to prevent diarrhoea – a disease which kills two million children a year. Since 2002, this campaign, paid for by Lifebuoy, has reached 80 million people in 28,000 villages, making it India’s largest-ever rural health and hygiene programme. It has now been extended to Africa, where Lifebuoy’s marketing specialists run training workshops for public health educators to help them create more effective hand wash education programmes using consumer marketing techniques.

Mothers and children learn how to improve hygiene habits

To be successful, therefore, new types of partnership have to have “win-win-win” outcomes – improved health and social benefits for the people who need them most, successful results for the public sector organization, and tangible business benefits for the private sector company. While the logic is simple enough, working in partnership with another organization that has very different objectives from your own is not always easy and requires a substantial shift in mindset by both partners. But if the public and private sectors can learn to value their differences and work together to build on them, the prize will be worth it. The world’s problems demand nothing less.

Patrick Cescau was appointed Group Chief Executive of the combined Unilever PLC and Unilever N.V. business in April 2005.  He began his career in 1973 when he joined Unilever France as an organization officer.  His career has taken him to many countries across the world and he has held senior positions with Unilever in Germany, The Netherlands, Indonesia, Portugal and the US. Born in France, Patrick was educated at ESSEC, graduating with a business degree, and later an MBA with distinction from INSEAD.  He is a non-executive director of Pearson PLC and a Conseiller du Commerce Exterieur de la France in Holland. He was awarded the Légion d'Honneur in January 2005.