CHURCHILL OTIENO
http://www.monitor.co.ug
Kabul - June 4, 2007
He said while many cases abound of good work by each of the three, their potential to improve lives was let down by the fact that they applied their efforts separately.
Development policies
The Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, was joined by several speakers at a key conference in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in calling on governments in developing countries to pursue policies that would drive development by accelerating business growth.
"Laying the state's political foundation is a necessary first step for an enabling environment, but even effective government can take us only so far," the Aga Khan said. "And that is why we have been talking more in recent years about two other sectors: first what I often call the role of 'civil society'; and, secondly, the capacities of the private sector."
This year the Aga Khan will mark his 50th year as the leader of the Ismaili Community. The Kabul conference, designed to help stir Afghanistan into a recovery mode following a period of war, comes 21 years after the first one was held in Nairobi.
Other key speakers were Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, Malaysia Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Prince Amyn Aga Khan of the Aga Khan Development Network.
The Aga Khan spoke of evidence throughout the developing world of a new emphasis on the capacities of indigenous organisations to meet development challenges "on a bottom-up rather than top-down approach".
"Voluntary village associations, for example, are undertaking projects which once lay in the political domain - ranging from the installation of water and sanitation systems and the building of irrigation canals, to the provision of educational services and the support of health and safety standards," he said.
However, the Aga Khan said the importance of government could not be ignored and that the role of the civil society and business sector was to complement, but not to compete.
Private sector
"All around the world, private companies of all sizes are a rapidly growing source of progressive energy. Increasingly, they see corporate social responsibility not as something extra - a symbolic after-thought tacked on to the corporate agenda at the end of the day - but rather as part and parcel of their basic commercial strategies," the Aga Khan told delegates as the meeting opened at Kabul Serena Hotel. He said one of the chief obstacles to development today "is that the efforts of all three sectors are to often scattered and fragmented".
He urged government, civil society and business to find ways of talking to one another often as they worked to better lives. He cited Cairo where such a partnership had borne fruit with at least 10 different civil, government and private groups coming together from at least five countries to collaborate in the creation of the Al-Azhar Park and revitalising the Darb al-Ahmar neighbourhood.
The Aga Khan said such alliances should not be limited by outmoded geographic constraints: "Here, as elsewhere, the future will depend on our ability to rise above the accident of common geography and to rally around common interests - whether our skills lie in apricot processing or tourism, transport or literature or law."
President Karzai told the conference that the long-term future of Afghanistan would depend on the Afghans themselves. "Afghanistan's prosperity today and in the future will be linked to our ability to attract and support private business," he said.
Malaysia Premier Badawi, who addressed the conference by video-link, said his country had lots of experience for Afghanistan to draw from given their similarities