Creating shared value, together

Mohammad Al Kashem
Managing Director, Coats Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

South Asia, the fastest-growing region in the world, is home to more than two billion people. The thriving region is expected to retain its growth momentum till 2025, with growth projected at 6.1 percent by the World Bank. This accelerated recovery post Covid—braving headwinds—is a result of the innate resilience that is so characteristic of the people of this region. Yet, surrounded by the daunting Indian Ocean, South Asia—especially countries bordering the seas, like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka—stand on the frontlines in the fight against climate change.

South Asia has been termed as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate shocks by the World Bank, which adds that a staggering 750 million people in the region have been affected by some form of climate change-induced natural disaster in the last 20 years. Often ravaged by mighty cyclones, gruelling heat waves, extreme drought, and unruly floods, the people are increasingly finding it difficult to fight this battle against natural disasters. By 2050, around 63 million people in South Asia could face displacement due to climate change.

To avert this possibility, all stakeholder groups—public, private and development sectors—must come together to chart practical pathways forward to create shared value that would give the people a solid ground to stand on, enabling them to weave their stories of resilience and prosperity.

As the region’s economy grows by leaps and bounds, this growth has to come with a focus on creating sustainable impact on the people’s wellbeing, and the private sector has a major role to play in this journey.

There are four key aspects that the private sector, especially big businesses should prioritise as they play their part in creating opportunities for sustainable prosperity for all: global thinking to find locally-appropriate interventions tailored to the needs of specific communities, implemented through meaningful partnerships. This is especially true for community impact interventions in under developed and developing countries due to the lack of adequate ecosystems and infrastructure, among other challenges.

Businesses such as Coats—which has been operating globally for more than two and half centuries and has witnessed history being created— are in possession of a treasure-trove of knowledge on navigating unforeseen challenges and turning them into opportunities, and also in a position to share their learnings and best practices with the wider stakeholder groups, to help them find contextual and innovative solutions that could be practically implemented to address the specific requirements of the communities involved.

Effective community-based interventions cannot be designed with a one-size-fits-all approach. What works for one community will not work for another primarily due to the different socio-economic and logistical realities. Also, what is important for one community will not be so for another in a different context. The inability to differentiate between these is where most community projects fail to create the desired impact.

What is needed is an extensive study of local policy frameworks, governance structures, and logistical landscape, focus group discussions with key stakeholder groups, and community onboarding to identify locally appropriate and scalable interventions that can be practically implemented to address the specific needs of the beneficiaries.

But the private sector alone cannot do all this. It will need the support of the public sector to create a conducive ecosystem through policy support, governance structures and infrastructure, and the development sector to help implement the interventions leveraging their understanding of and access to the communities and the strength of their community mobilisation network.

However, meaningful impact can only be created when the communities are fully engaged in these programmes and take full ownership of their long-term management.

Together with the policymakers, development sector partners, and the people—the real heroes, the changemakers—businesses can truly touch lives and create shared values for sustainable growth and prosperity for all.

A tall order, but very much doable with a can-do attitude. All it needs is the right intention and walking the talk.

At Coats, we have a well-defined framework to drive our community impact initiatives—the Coats Cares programme. Under three broad pillars of Environment, Education and Wellbeing, multiple locally-appropriate initiatives have been undertaken across geographies to help communities overcome their challenges. In the cluster that I am responsible for, we have taken diverse initiatives under the Coats Cares umbrella that are benefitting hundreds of beneficiaries.

In Bangladesh, among other projects, under the Education pillar, we have recently donated a state-of-the-art Computer Lab to a school called UTSHO, that provides care for more than 500 underserved students. A fully equipped computer lab will empower the students with knowledge so that they can create a brighter future for themselves and their communities.

In Pakistan, under the Environment pillar, we have partnered with World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Pakistan, to plant 1000 mangrove saplings in Karachi, under their “Treeathon-Rung Do Pakistan” programme. The mangrove trees will not only sequester carbon but will also provide the coastal belt a strong shield from extreme weather events, such as cyclones.

Similarly, in Sri Lanka, under the wellbeing pillar, we have collaborated with Moragahahena School to empower their students on feminine wellbeing with a programme involving awareness raising and distribution of feminine hygiene products to 300 students every month. These girls are now more aware about their wellbeing and also empowered to take better care of themselves.

Apart from these, there are countless other projects where we not only invest financially, but our Coats colleagues proactively invest their time to create shared value for all.

The challenges in this journey of creating opportunities for sustainable shared prosperity are many, but at Coats, with the right strategic framework and guidelines in place, we are on track to create a meaningful impact in the communities where we operate and beyond.