March in Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Spain. Flickr. Some rights reserved.
It is often thought that the contribution that companies can make to peace-building is limited to their economic capacity. Accordingly, efforts to find out how they can link to peace initiatives tend to focus on their financial contribution to cover the costs of post-conflict, developing income generation opportunities for veterans and victims, or even financing initiatives developed by third parties. However, there is a world of possibilities for companies to contribute to lasting peace that go far beyond monetary contributions. In many cases, in fact, the most significant contribution companies can make to sustainable peace is not monetary.
There is no doubt that companies will play a leading role in the post-conflict and peace economy. I would like to draw attention to this role both in the political economy of peace and the transformation of the local realities closely linked to the conflict, and in the reconstruction of community ties and social capital. In this sense, the Foundation Ideas for Peace - FIP has been working on the definition of a business agenda which takes into consideration the following six dimensions:
