Financial Times

Six Months after Tsunami: Looking Ahead
It is six months after the most traumatic, devastating and unexpected experience to which Sri Lankans woke up following the Asian tsunami hitting the coastal belt with a vengeance. The initial shock, disbelief of the after effects and trauma turned the harts of millions of those living in other lands and many thousands living in Sri Lanka to witness an outpouring of care with an extended hand support as never seen before. The CNN, BBC and other media played a great part to leverage over 40 percent of families in America, and Europe to extend a genuine hand of support, from small donations to physical presence.

Politicians united and for once there was a meeting of minds on relief and rehabilitation of the effected with a sense of urgency and commitment. Then came promises that could not be delivered. As time wore on, the true spirit of “what is in it for us/me personally came to the fore?” and politicians asked, “how can we leverage some brownie points with the voters at the next elections?” The interests of the impacted, the only rational decision making benchmark was at the bottom of the pile of priorities. They all showed their true colours!

The business community played a significant positive role of support placing resources as never before committed to CSR. The NGO’s were the lifeblood and plasma of the affected. Without their effective action, immediate response and continuity in the face of all external challenges and even obstacles, the tsunami victims would have been in a worse off situation today. The international agencies and donor nations pledged support with conditions to pledges going beyond the immediate relief phase to the area of reconstruction. The local media has failed to place strategic communications to effectively bind civil society under the united banner of “ We are all members of Sri Lanka Inc, singing from the same hymn sheet”.

The recent events that unfolded with the Joint Mechanism are truly disheartening and have dashed the hopes rekindled for a united nation of citizens devoid of divisions, placing the interests of the nation and its people first. To some, their future depends on chaos and division. The element of a religious conflict added to the long lasting boiling pot of the ethnic crisis would be a bonus. To them this was a gift from the heavens never to let go without significant, selfishly planned personal benefits.

A civil society leader who committed 50 years of his life to support the effective empowerment of the village and its people recently gave three gems of advice worthy of recognition and alignment with the thinking of the business sector and the civil society. When asked to comment on the issue of a court order to remove Buddhist statues in Trincomalee and the consequential need to protest and protect the rights of Buddhists, the leader responded with, “let us focus on solving the issues of the living and suffering tsunami victims without focussing on a statue and creating conflict and confusion that distracts from alleviating the suffering of the impacted”.

When asked to lead an initiative to protest against the Joint Mechanism on the grounds that the Sinhalese race had to be protected, he asked, “the focus of the stand unanimously agreed by all is that the tsunami victims need to be rehabilitated with urgency. This being the core rationale a piece of paper must not come in the way of delivering on promises to the victims. Agreements can be dissected after achieving their immediate needs.” Asked to support the launch of political campaigns for the next general elections of some interested candidates he asked the caller if they had time and resources for a political foray, instead to go with their supporters and lend a hand to the tsunami victims.

Business leaders and chamber chiefs can also take a cue from the above advice. Rather than spend time and resources analyzing political outcomes and systems instability they can focus on finishing the tasks they began six months ago along with any remaining commitments. They can also stop wasting time with press releases focussing on pieces of paper with a commentary on the gentlemanly or ungentlemanly behaviour of leaders.

They could rather focus on creating value, improving productivity and quality leading to enhanced competitiveness and invests the good operational results coming through to create more value and jobs whist continuing with the good work on CSR. This is the time to genuinely take the next steps in CSR by linking big business with SME’s and supporting micro sector with distribution, marketing, technology and best practice advise as well as risk management and mitigation advise. They should link business with village business, families with village families and btsiness leaders with village leaders.

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