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May 4, 2025
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Renewable Energy: A Potent Tool For Women Empowerment In Rural India

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The CSR Journal
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By Vaishali Nigam Sinha

While otherwise enjoying a phase of robust economic growth, India, unfortunately continues to be plagued by energy poverty. This is more pronounced in the rural regions, which are home to close to 70% of Indians.
Though the government has focused attention on rural electrification, there are still around 41 million houses implying approximately 300 million people with little or no access to electricity.
A major advantage that electricity generated from renewable sources has over that from fossil fuels is that it is about 15%-20% cheaper. This has huge significance in a developing economy like India where both accessibility and affordability are of equal importance.
Addition to renewables capacity will take electricity to far flung areas and bring it within the reach of the underprivileged masses. Renewable energy can thus act as a crucial tool in filling up the gaps of energy access through decentralized energy systems. Decentralized energy systems and off-grid solutions are in fact providing entrepreneurship opportunities for rural women who can be trained as solar engineers and improve their livelihood and relevance in society.
Access to energy has positive spill-over effects in terms of improved health, better education, alternate livelihood activities, increased productivity and increased safety among others. By providing access to renewable energy, people can shed their reliance on traditional sources like kerosene and wood fired cooking stoves, thus guaranteeing them a safer and healthier lifestyle.
Traditional fuels exacerbate environmental problems and lead to indoor pollution and respiratory diseases. The World Health Organization reports that in India around 500,000 deaths occur annually due to respiratory diseases caused by unclean cooking fuels. Women and children are undeniably the main victims of indoor pollution, hence access to renewable energy is a major boon to them.
One of the major ways in which renewable energy can empower rural women is by transforming the rural education scenario, powering more schools and thereby widening access to quality education. A majority of schools in rural India still lack access to electricity, and this is one of the primary reasons for low attendance, and often drop outs, especially amongst girls.
Electrified village schools have historically witnessed lower drop-out rates, higher test scores, and higher proportions of girls entering secondary education. If one changes the way education is imparted, this leads to students, especially girls forming better, newer ideas. If there is a solar rooftop on a school, there can be ICT solutions and students can learn through audio and visual means, rather than sticking to traditional forms of education.
Renewable energy enables a school to adopt solutions which are modern, transformative and futuristic, changing the landscape of how education is imparted, which will invariably affect girls more positively and empower them. Girls who are in this system will be better informed and more confident – equipped to make the most of opportunities that open up in front of them.
As per a McKinsey report, by 2035, 50% of energy generation will be through renewable sources so it is very likely that rural India will reap the benefits of this energy transition. Women, who spend hours in the dark looking for fuel and are not paid or recognized for this work while exposing themselves to potential violence will be the primary beneficiaries if renewable energy finds its way into rural households.
Renewable energy can also spur entrepreneurship – generating precious alternate means of livelihood for rural women. There are success stories, such as the Solar Grannies initiative where elderly rural women have been trained to become “solar engineers”, putting them on a path to self-sufficiency and heightened self-esteem while bringing light to their respective villages.
Solar grannies
Solar grannies
ReNew Power too has plans to launch a programme on similar lines – titled Urja Ambassador wherein it will train local women to handle operational maintenance of micro grids in remote villages, thereby providing an avenue for supplementary income.
Renewable energy can be the key to unlocking a sustainable future and catalysing the economic mainstreaming of women in villages. Steady access to clean energy at the grass-root level would enable women to run their business operations smoothly and in an environmentally-friendly manner. For example, perpetual lighting outdoors will enable them to work for longer hours outdoors and inside their home too.
Another noteworthy example is the successful implementation of a business model by Selco, which provides solar power equipment on instalment basis. Rural women are targeted wherein from a group of women, a leader is chosen who provides solar charged batteries to the rest on rent. These women, who are all business owners are able to afford payments on account of increased earnings through extended business hours. If similar programmes can be replicated across the country on a large scale the beneficiaries will multiply manifold.
Another way in which energy access helps improve quality of life is through the now ubiquitous cell-phones. The ability to power mobile phones has implications on productivity, market access and connectivity, leading to an improved life for women.
We can also draw inspiration from international success stories about empowered rural women helping spread renewable energy. As per the United Nations, Solar Sister is an award-winning social enterprise advancing women’s entrepreneurship to bring off-grid electricity and clean cooking solutions to underserved communities across Sub-Saharan Africa, which has significantly improved the living standards of rural women.
While rural women still form the pillars of the rural economy by being the primary ones engaged in agriculture, cattle-rearing, cooking and so on, their lack of power in decision-making has kept them on the backward trenches. Renewable energy interventions can help correct this social distortion by creating empowered women entrepreneurs who have a higher degree of power in decision making due to being economically independent. There is empirical evidence that clean energy access is linked to higher chances for women to earn better wages, contributes to reduction in gender-based violence and enables girls to complete primary education.
Wiser and wider application of renewable energy can unshackle the growth potential of rural women in India’s villages and help them enjoy a better quality of life. As capital costs decrease and efficiency rises, renewable energy is likely to find a higher degree of penetration in rural India, relieving households from the strangle of energy poverty. With unfettered energy access, the social, economic and health indicators of women are set to improve, making a perceptible difference to their living conditions and fast tracking their overall upliftment.

A version of this article first appeared in our April 2019 print edition. To grab a copy of the magazine, click here

Vaishali Nigam SinhaThe author is Chief Sustainability, CSR & Communication Officer at ReNew Power Ltd. A strong advocate of equal participation of women in economic activities, Vaishali Nigam Sinha drives the engagement, CSR and sustainability initiatives of ReNew Power under the ambit of ReNew India Initiative (RII). Vaishali has a Masters’ in Public Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she was an American Association of University Women (AAUW) scholar.

Views of the author are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Thank you for reading the column. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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Volunteers Are Cleaning Up 22,000 Pounds of Trash Left on Mount Everest

By
The CSR Journal
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People who attempt to climb Mount Everest have to make a $4,000 deposit before their ascent that they only get back if they lug 17.6 pounds of garbage on their way down for proper disposal.
That’s because the Nepalese government is tired of the tallest mountain in the world being treated like a landfill, according to ABC News.
Mount Everest holds more than 60,000 pounds (or 30 tons) of garbage and human waste left behind by climbers over the years. Tents, cannisters, clothing, food packaging, and much more can be found scattered throughout the cliffs, marring the mountain’s vast beauty, and posing a threat to wildlife.
Now the Nepalese government, with support from volunteers, has launched a campaign to clean up the pollution.
Since April 14, teams of volunteers have collected an estimated 6,600 pounds of trash, and the military has chipped in to fly non-biodegradable garbage to the capital Kathmandu for disposal. The teams are aiming to collect 22,000 of garbage by May 29, the 66th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
Despite advances in technology, Mount Everest remains a formidable challenge for experienced climbers. Only 5,200 people have made it to the top, and at least 302 people have died trying to reach the peak.
An additional 775 people are attempting the ascent this year, according to ABC News, and several thousand others have attempted the climb.
That such a small amount of people can generate such a vast amount of waste reflects the larger problem of waste management around the world — plastic waste in particular.
Globally, the world generates more than 300 million tons of plastic annually and only a fraction of this ever gets recycled. The majority of plastic ends up in landfills or polluting ecosystems. The world’s oceans, for example, absorb more than 8 million tons of plastic annually, which is comparable to a garbage truck full of plastic being dumped into a body of water every minute.
A growing body of research has shown how this plastic waste harms marine life and ultimately makes its way into the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.
Although countries have begun to restrict plastic production, the world is expected to create 40% more plastic per year within a decade.
And it’s not just plastic that’s overwhelming the capacity of waste management systems. Everything from electronic waste to fecal matter is ending up polluting land and marine environments in ways that are hazardous to human health.
Mount Everest has long stood as a symbolic testament to human endurance. If the world’s tallest peak can be cleaned, then perhaps the rest of the planet can be rehabilitated as well.

Source: Global Citizen

CSR: Purpose of a Purpose in Business

By
Hency Thacker
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It has become very popular in recent years for companies to have a short and accessible purpose statement. Such corporate purposes are then communicated internally to employees and to external stakeholders via brands, websites, press releases and corporate reports. Understanding what is the purpose of this purpose is highly important in today’s time.

Meaningful corporate purpose resonates with a wide range of stakeholders. This not only makes it consistent but true to the company’s products and services, operations and behaviour. It must resonate with every employee of a company in their day-to-day activities, or else the gap between a statement of corporate purpose and people’s lived experience of it will be significantly experienced.

This is why purpose has many applications as guidance for corporates towards being a sustainable profit-making entity in the following ways:

Long-term value creation

Long-term value creation includes the value created by an entity for society as a whole: financial value for shareholders, economic value in supply chains, environmental value across value chains, social value for host communities and sustainable livelihoods for employees. The most purposeful companies have a clear understanding of the role they play across these stakeholder groups and are well placed to adapt their business model to changing conditions so that they thrive over time.

Corporate strategy

The most impactful corporate purposes are fully integrated into corporate strategy, with clear connections with an entity’s business objectives and alignment with the products and services it sells. Governance arrangements support executive oversight of corporate purpose and hold the senior leadership team to account for how effectively and meaningfully corporate purpose is being “lived” in the company and across its supply chain and broader value chain.

Values and behaviours

The most tangible expression of a company’s purpose is the values and behaviours demonstrated by the corporation as an entity and its people as individuals, teams and leaders. For example, can an organisation which claims to be a responsible corporate citizen, be truly purposeful if it also aggressively pursues tax avoidance schemes in host countries? And can a company which claims to be creating long-term value for society at large, be truly purposeful if this is achieved by exploiting its staff and suppliers?

Trust

Erosion of trust has been the single most pervasive issue at the interface between business and society since last few years. The corporation is a social and legal construct, and if it is not serving the society in a manner commensurate with its financial performance, then society will inevitably change the permitted form of the corporation. A purposeful business imbibes trust in society, instilling confidence among those whom it serves as customers and those who, in turn, serve it as employees, suppliers, regulators and local host communities.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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Drinking water topmost need in wake of Cyclone Fani

By
Kasmin Fernandes
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‘Cyclone Fani’, one of the strongest storms to batter the Indian subcontinent in decades, made landfall near Puri, India, on 3rd May 2019. Over 10,000 villages and 50 towns bore its brunt, with over 1.4 million people still in relief centres across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.
Drinking water is evident as the most urgent need. Taps are dry, local water bodies are broken or contaminated with saline water or garbage, and toilets are waterlogged and not functional. With electricity supply expected to stay affected for at least a week more, pumping stations are out of order and water supply will remain an area of concern.
Contaminated drinking water is usually the cause of water borne disease outbreaks in such situations, and thus an urgent focus is being placed on clean drinking water supply, enabling hygienic conditions, and providing medical support via health camps to nip any diseases in the bud. Odisha was hardest hit, and the non-profit organisation SEEDS is reaching out with immediate water, health and hygiene support to the worst affected – largely slum dwellers and rural marginal families.

Early Recovery Assistance

Keeping an eye on the next level of needs, the NPO’s team will be working with affected families to start reconstruction as soon as possible. With estimates of tens of thousands of houses damaged, there is a strong urgency in getting roofs over people’s heads in the sweltering heat of the coming days, and the monsoon rains and main cyclone season that lies ahead.
While plastic sheets and tarpaulin are being distributed in these areas, families cannot survive in these for long, and permanent housing reconstruction will take years. For partially damaged houses, families will be advised to repair them safely, to withstand future disasters.
Damaged schools will need to be rebuilt or repaired soon enough for children to restart their education at the end of the summer. Other public infrastructure like health centres and community buildings will also require attention.
While government support will be adequate to do this, SEEDS strives to work with affected communities to fill the time gap till these facilities are accounted for, funded and rebuilt. They call this approach ‘transitional’, wherein transitional houses and schools help affected families survive the coming months better and are the starting point for recovery. Here’s urging individuals and organisations with technical skills in the water, sanitation, health and shelter construction domains to volunteer and lend a helping hand to our countrymen.

Thank you for reading. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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‘Vedanta is committed to transforming India into a global sporting powerhouse’: Annanya Agarwal, President, Vedanta Football

By
Kasmin Fernandes
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Despite the brickbats The Vedanta Group has been receiving from environmentalists, Annanya Agarwal is positive that the group is committed to continuously work towards improving quality of life of the communities in its operational areas. “Even though CSR is a mandatory activity under the Companies Act, we always ensure that we spend much more than the stipulated 2% – last year we spent as much as 9 times the required amount,” he told The CSR Journal in an exclusive interview.
A footballer himself, Annanya is passionate about developing grassroots football in the country. Excerpts from the interview:

What is Vedanta’s commitment to sports in the country?

The Vedanta Group is committed to transforming India into a global sporting powerhouse, with the vision of enabling every child in India to play and excel through grassroots programmes.
Vedanta shares the dream of millions of Indian football fans who want to see India on the world football stage, and with the aim of uplifting football in India, it has made a considerable investment on the development of grassroots football in the country.
The Group runs two state-of-the-art academies at Goa and Rajasthan and provides regular football training to over 2000 children through residential and non-residential programmes. The company’s focus on gender equality spills over to the football field as well – the Vedanta Women’s League in Goa has completed 2 seasons, featuring over 160 players.
The Group also encourages other sports through various initiatives: complete sponsorship of para-athletes at international Paralympics and other tournaments, grassroot development of archery in Jharkhand, hosting an annual squash tournament at Mumbai, and organizing an annual marathon at Jaipur.

How does Vedanta fulfil sporting commitments through CSR?

All of Vedanta’s sports programmes, both residential and non-residential, are part of its CSR activities, and are free of cost for all participating children.
Vedanta established Sesa Football Academy in Goa in 1999 with a vision of becoming a premier academy in India, producing footballers for the national team from the state of Goa. The Zinc Football academy was launched in Udaipur to focus on Rajasthan – a marathon football talent hunt was undertaken with an aim to reach out to more than 50,000 children in 100 villages and tribal areas of Rajasthan over the next 5 years. The Group also has plans to expand its activities to the other states it operates in.
The theme of women empowerment is very dear to Vedanta, and the Group translated it onto the football field through the ‘Vedanta Women’s Football League’ launched with support from Goa Football Association. The league has already completed 2 full seasons, and saw participation from over 160 girls, a few of which have gone on to represent the national team as well.

Vedanta also sponsors Vedanta Squash India Open annually, to promote the game of squash. Two seasons have been completed, with the first season in 2018 featuring more than 30 players from 10 countries. In the second edition held this year, the focus was more on grassroot development, with the tournament featuring both boys and girls in the under-11, 13, 15, 17 & 19 age-groups at the national level.
Vedanta’s group company, Cairn India, was associated with Hockey India for a few years. In 2014, Cairn had organized Rajasthan Women’s Hockey Cup and also supported the 2014 Hockey Champions Trophy in Bhubaneswar. Cairn India hosts an annual marathon event at Jaipur – Cairn Pink City Marathon – to promote healthy living.

What are the funds invested in sports programmes, and their impact?

Sesa Football Academy in Goa has a very rich heritage – set up in 1999, eight alumni from the academy have gone on to represent India, along with numerous others in the national I-League and Indian Super League. One of the players from SFA was offered a contract at a second division club in Spain.
Players who participated in the Vedanta Women’s League have also been selected to the national team and state teams at various age-group levels. Sesa Football Academy’s first team plays in Goa’s first division league, while the age-group teams participate in competitions at the national level. Sesa’s community outreach football programme covers 500 kids across 16 villages in Goa.
Vedanta’s Zinc Football academy in Rajasthan was set up last year at a capital cost of around INR 10 crores, with special emphasis on technology and data analysis to drive player performance. The academy at Udaipur uses F-Cube, India’s first ever technology-hinged football training programme.
Zinc Football was started with the mission of reaching out to kids across Rajasthan, and over 5000 children participated in scouting initiatives, and 2000 in Performance Evaluation Camps in the first year itself. Out of these, 32 players were selected for the residential academy; few among these kids have gone on to represent Rajasthan state team as well.

How could sports benefit children and youth in India?

We believe sport has an integral role to play in the growth of a nation. Sport can be seen as a microcosm for life. Playing sports imparts valuable life lessons to those who take it up, teaching them to ride the good times and weather the bad. With sports engagement, the children and youth in the communities get a positive direction in life, and stay away from ill habits.
With the growing popularity of sports in India through ISL and other leagues, sports is now a lucrative career option rather than a hobby or pastime. Even so, at our academies, formal education is given equal importance as football training, just so that our children have fallback career options.
Vedanta also has a programme to coach the coaches – we assist ex-footballers to take up coaching, or other football-related employment.

You are a footballer yourself. How has the sport impacted your value system?

Being an entrepreneur and a footballer myself, I cannot stress this enough: “A healthy mind resides only in a healthy body”. At a very basic level, playing football (or any sport) gives you a chance to exercise your body and run around for 90 minutes without letting matters outside the field affect you. This helps your mind reboot, and enables you to think with more clarity when you next focus on your work.
Football being a team sport also offers ample opportunities to develop valuable life skills like coordination and collaboration, especially when the games get highly competitive. Communicating with my work colleagues effectively in stressful situations is something that comes naturally to me, thanks to my experience on the football field.

However, the one learning from football that has really helped me grow as a person is to leave everything on the field – try your hardest to win, but at the final whistle, whatever the result, always shake hands with your teammates and opponents.

CSR in India still has very low involvement in sports. Please comment.

This was true until quite recently. However, many corporates have realized the importance of sport and the benefits that it brings to people who impart themselves in the activity. Previously, the major involvement of corporates in sports used to be restricted to tying up with sports personalities as their brand ambassadors or the most popular sport in the country – cricket. However, in recent times we see many corporates taking interest in promoting football, hockey, badminton, kabaddi, marathons etc.
It is very encouraging to see that the dynamics of sport in our country has been dramatically changing. We at Vedanta strive to do our part by providing the much-needed platform and infrastructure to promote sport in our country. We believe that we have a lot of talent in our country who can achieve great heights not only nationally but on a global scale if nurtured in the right manner.

What does corporate social responsibility mean to you?

One of my earliest memories of my grandfather is of him taking a longer route to his workplace, to meet and greet some friends and distribute biscuits and water to them. While everyone around him would be hustling and bustling to gain material comforts, my grandfather used to be content just seeing the smiles on his friends’ faces.
These familial values have been imbibed by Vedanta’s policies as well. Our approach towards CSR is as quoted by our Chairman, my uncle, Anil Agarwal: “It is important to give back what we earn for the greater good of society. 75% of our wealth, which we gain as economic benefit, should be returned to society.”
The Vedanta Group is committed to conduct its business in a socially responsible, ethical and environment friendly manner and to continuously work towards improving quality of life of the communities in its operational areas. Even though CSR is a mandatory activity under the Companies Act, we always ensure that we spend much more than the stipulated 2% – last year we spent as much as 9 times the required amount.

How could companies work with the government to make India a sporting nation?

Companies can play an important role in supporting the government to inculcate a sporting culture in our country. The important aspect to promote any sport in the country is to develop the appropriate infrastructure, and corporates can play a huge role in this aspect.
Moreover, the focus needs to be on the grassroots level and the right platforms need to be created for children when they are of age. Government initiatives like Khelo India have been put in place for precisely this, and it is important for corporates to align themselves to these.
Vedanta is actively striving for our academies to be empaneled by Khelo India; our President is also extremely keen to provide support to the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) as and when it is formulated.
The franchisee football model that has worked wonders in other countries could work in our country too. In this model, corporates (franchisees) own teams and the government/AIFF/state footballing bodies organize lucrative leagues (like the ISL) for these teams to participate. This helps establish a footballing culture in the country as well.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please drop a line.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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IMFA commits Rs 75 lakhs to Cyclone Fani relief efforts

By
The CSR Journal
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Subhrakant Panda, Chairman, FICCI Odisha State Council and Managing Director, IMFA today appealed to corporates to contribute generously to help those affected by Cyclone Fani while committing INR 75 lakhs by the company in addition to efforts at the local level.
In his appeal, Subhrakant Panda said: “While the Central & State Governments have stepped in to alleviate the suffering of people, it is incumbent upon all responsible corporates to lend a helping hand to the relief, rehabilitation and restoration efforts in Odisha. IMFA is committing INR 75 lakhs to the Odisha Chief Minister’s Relief Fund and I appeal to others to come forward.”
Employee volunteers in Choudwar & Sukinda have also been helping those affected in the locality by providing relief material and assisting in the clean up in the aftermath of the cyclone.

United Nations launches project to boost women’s entrepreneurship in Cambodia

By
The CSR Journal
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Women-owned businesses have been on the rise over the past twenty years in the Asia-Pacific region. In Cambodia, around 65 per cent of micro-sized businesses are women-led. However, when it comes to upscaling their businesses, women entrepreneurs across the region face significantly higher barriers including discriminatory legislative frameworks, limited access to finance and ICT, lack of opportunity for capacity development and discriminatory socio-cultural norms and beliefs.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in partnership with Global Affairs Canada and the Government of Cambodia, launched a new project to support the growth of women entrepreneurs.
The five-year project titled ‘Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship: Creating a Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem’ aims to create an enabling policy and business environment that enhances women entrepreneurs’ access to capital through innovative financing mechanisms as well as increase their use of ICT and digital solutions. Apart from Cambodia, the project will also be implemented in five other countries in the region. The project is undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada.
“The case for investing in women entrepreneurs is compelling. They are true agents of change whose innovations can lift companies, communities, and countries. We are committed to improving their prospects, to unleashing women entrepreneurs’ full potential and putting gender equality squarely at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Armida Alisjahbana.
“The private sector is the main driver of Cambodia’s economy, and developing Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) is one of the priorities of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s private sector development agenda. Support must be tailored to assist woman entrepreneurs to run their businesses more effectively and efficiently by harnessing on ICT in such a fast-growing technological and innovation era. The project ‘Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship: Creating a Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem’ will provide great benefits to women in Cambodia and in other project implementing countries”, said H.E. Ly Thuch, Senior Minister and President of the National Committee for ESCAP.
As one of the activities under the innovative finance part of the project, ESCAP and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) have also launched a Women Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSME) Fintech Innovation Fund.
The Fund will support companies to pilot innovative digital and financial solutions that help improve access for women-owned or led MSMEs in the target countries. Successful applicants – who will be announced on 30 May 2019 – will be provided with technical assistance, mentorship and early stage co-funding (USD 25,000 – USD 50,000) to pilot and upscale their solutions.

Great Powers in Afghanistan, Between Cooperation and Competition

By
The CSR Journal
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Afghanistan
By Abdul Bari Nijrabi and Max Bone
On April 25, representatives of the United States, Russia, and China convened at the first trilateral meeting on the Afghan Peace process in Moscow. At the conclusion of this meeting, the United States released a statement outlining the agreements reached during the trilateral consultation. This meeting was preceded by visits of the U.S. Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation to both Beijing and Moscow in recent months.
The statement outlines eight key areas the China, Russia and the United States agreed upon. None of the points listed are new, and in fact, they have been at the forefront of American policy regarding its conduct in negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan since Ambassador Khalilzad assumed his role in the fall of 2018. For instance, the three sides agreed it is imperative for the Afghan Taliban to enter negotiations with the government of Afghanistan, which up until this date it has failed to do.
Further, the three countries agreed that in any peace agreement a protocol must be developed that will ensure the Taliban will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe-haven for international terrorist groups as the country was at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was agreed upon that serious action must be taken to confront narcotrafficking in the country, an issue that is of grave concern to Russia in particular.
It is worth noting that this agreement of principles between the United States, Russia, and China comes amidst increasing tensions between Washington and both Moscow and Beijing. Currently, Beijing and Washington are in high stakes trade talks after two years of economic tensions that some have coined a trade war. Further, President Xi of China and President Trump of the United States are increasingly at odds regarding how to move forward regarding ongoing denuclearization talks with North Korea.
Regarding Russia, analysts have predicted that the United States and Russia are entering into an arms race following the withdrawal of the two countries from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
It would be logical to ask why the United States is willing to cooperate with two countries it is in direct opposition with regarding peace negotiations in Afghanistan. A cynical answer might be that the United States under the leadership of Donald J. Trump is desperate to remove American troops from the country-one of his key campaign promises when he won the election in 2016.
Further, it would not be farfetched to assume that Russia and China would gladly assume more leverage and control of the strategically located country of Afghanistan if the United States were to reduce its role in the country. It is imperative to examine the interests of the three countries in Afghanistan and if there is even the slightest possibility for their objectives to align.
The objectives of the United States in Afghanistan are likely the most known of the three countries. After withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan following the signing of the Geneva Accords with the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the United was forced to return to the country following the horrific 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Since then, the United States has maintained that it will never allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists and has maintained a military presence in Afghanistan under three different presidents. While the United States has carried out admirable work in Afghanistan regarding women’s empowerment, development, and democratization, its underlying interests in the country have been in the field over counterterrorism. This is specifically the case under the presidency of Donald J. Trump. When outlining his administration’s South Asia strategy in August of 2017 Trump said “We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.”
China has had a complex relationship with modern day Afghanistan since the eighteenth century when the Qing Dynasty conquered what is now known as Xinjiang. Specifically, China has concerns about the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (EISM), an organization seeking to achieve the independence of China’s Xinjiang province through militant means. The EISM, which was classified as a terrorist group in 2003 by the U.S. Department of States and the United Nations alike has carried out multiple attacks, including one in Southwest China in 2014 that killed twenty-nine civilians.
The concern that China has regarding the EISM has only increased in recent years, as illustrated by the mass incarceration of up to a million ethnic Uighurs that has occurred in recent years. This mass incarceration of Uighers that has been called ethnic cleansing and even genocide will likely spur radicalization, only raising China’s concern.
Out of the United States, China, and Russia it is Russia’s interests in Afghanistan that are surrounded by the most ambiguity. Russia first became involved in Afghanistan at the height of the cold war, when it installed a communist regime that lead to a prolonged war in the country. This led Russia to avoid becoming heavily involved in Afghanistan.
Yet this began to change after 2010 when the Russian government began to express its frustration with the perceived failures of western efforts to halt narco-trafficking in Afghanistan. This is largely due to the substantial amount of narcotics that are trafficked through Central Asian states into Russia before entering global markets.
Russia became only more critical of western counternarcotic efforts in Afghanistan in 2014 when the United States placed sanctions on the head of Russia’s anti-doping agency, Viktor Ivanov, which Moscow described as “burying a promising line of cooperation.”
Russia’s frustration with western counternarcotic efforts in Afghanistan was only underlined in December of 2017 when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that the west had a “double standard” regarding its policy in Afghanistan that was causing the country’s narcotics trade to expand. Russia’s frustration with the narcotics trade in Center Asia, which originates in Afghanistan, has reportedly led to the Afghan government cooperating with the Taliban in order to halt the trade.
In addition to narcotics, Russia is reportedly concerned about the growing presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The Islamic State has carried out an array of attacks in Russia, including the bombing of the Saint Petersburg Metro in 2017 that killed fifteen people.
In examining the interests of the United States, China, and Russia in Afghanistan, it appears that the three share similar interests, at least on the surface. The three countries are all concerned with terrorism and the notion that Afghanistan could be utilized as a safe haven by the Islamic State or other terrorist groups to conduct attacks on another country’s soil. Further, the three share concerns about transnational crime, law-enforcement, and porous borders.
It is true that in many ways, the world appears to be returning to an area of great power competition in which nation-states compete against another. However, in Afghanistan, it appears that the interests and objectives of three main powers, the United States, China, and Russia are actually in alignment. Therefore, could the agreements reached between the three powers in Moscow on April 25 pave the way for Afghanistan to become a field for great power cooperation, instead of competition?
Not only could this be a positive change in global geopolitical occurrences, but it could also be crucial for creating the foundations of a just and lasting peace in Afghanistan. Potentially, this could be naive thinking, yet when a country has suffered from decades of war and violence at the expense of its population, is there any other option?

Abdul Bari Nijrabi is President and Founder of the International Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development. He is based between Kabul, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C.  R. Maxwell Bone is Vice President for Political Affairs, Democracy, and Governance at the International Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development. He is based in Washington, D.C.

Views of the authors are personal and do not necessarily represent the website’s views.

Thank you for reading the column. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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This Amazon-Led Alliance is Out to Revolutionise Healthcare

By
The CSR Journal
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In January 2018, the world’s richest man entered into an alliance with the CEOs of the world’s third-largest public company and the United States’ largest bank.

Their sights were set on healthcare, and remain so.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (net worth: $128.1 billion, as of 2018), Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon—the respective parties in question—announced a goal to lower healthcare costs for their U.S.-based employees, some 1.2 million in number.

The alliance, which also declared itself “free from profit-making incentives and constraints,” is expected to present solutions that are technology-centred—no surprise, considering Amazon’s presence in this pact. And in the process, it could very well disrupt the entire industry.

The alliance’s challenge is considerable. Healthcare costs, in Buffett’s words, amount to “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” consuming some 18% of the GDP. That’s up from 5% in 1960, and over the last 30 years, the costs have climbed faster than inflation.

The crunch has been felt most severely since the turn of the century. Insurance premiums increased twice as fast as wages between 2007 and 2012, and they rose 19% over the following five years, while wages went up just 12%.

And as much as employers and the rank and file are feeling the pinch, so too are healthcare providers, such as the skilled nursing facilities which are part of The Allure Group. Our mission continues to be to provide top-notch care at an affordable price, an increasingly difficult thing to do given the ever-increasing number of seniors, the staffing challenges that result from that and the proliferation of chronic diseases.

Which way forward?

It is unclear exactly how the Amazon-led alliance will proceed on the tech front, seeing as its most significant move to date was naming Dr Atul Gawande, a well-renowned surgeon, writer and public health innovator, as its CEO in July 2018.

It has been theorized, however, that any coalition that includes a company like Amazon will follow a business model much like the one Bezos and his team already have in place—one that affords every customer access to each of his or her transactions, makes recommendations based on those transactions, offers transparency about price options, posts reviews from other authors and customers, and goes to great lengths to keep customers happy. (And is successful in doing so, having finished atop the American Customer Satisfaction Index for 16 of 17 years, through 2017.)

Will all docs deliver the same quality of care?

Unlike inanimate products which often are produced by suppliers in keeping with standards like ISO, healthcare services are only as good as the doctors and medical facilities that deliver them, meaning variations in care quality and healthcare cost will be aplenty.

To date, the majority of Americans are insured by a commercial or government-sponsored health plan. It is the plans’ responsibility to contract with and credential providers of medicine—verifying, and assessing the qualifications of a practitioner to provide care or services in or for a healthcare organization.

How the alliance approach this requirement will be key to enabling greater access to health services, care cost and care quality for all consumers, as provider changes happen routinely and are often not communicated and updated in a timely manner, impacting consumer’s access to care, quality and cost.

Re-shaping the healthcare behaviours of consumers

Given what the alliance already knows about every American through the reach of their products, it’s not inconceivable to believe that it already knows the diagnoses, conditions and healthcare needs of many Americans.

For this reason, we can expect a major healthcare paradigm shift in the coming years. Amazon alone has already reprogrammed how we buy everything we need or want.  Bezos cultivated and waited patiently for Amazon to take root in the fabric of American life—operating at losses for more than 14 years—and it’s now the most valuable and profitable company in the world.

Healthcare is a local phenomenon, tailored to a given area. While this alliance brings considerable resources to the table, the only way to enact sweeping change is to do so on a case-by-case basis, one region at a time. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

That, then, is what this new alliance faces—and it is a gargantuan undertaking, as other Fortune 500 companies have learned. In 2016, American Express, IBM, Verizon and Shell joined 16 other companies to form the Health Transformation Alliance, which proved to be of great benefit to those companies and their employees but did not impact healthcare as a whole.

Google and Microsoft have also ventured into that space without making so much as a dent.

There are also those, like Karim Sariahmed of Put People First! PA, who wonder whether deep-pocketed types like Bezos should be involved with an endeavour such as this in the first place. Sariahmed is of the opinion that the Amazon chief, like his compatriots, is only looking out for his own personal bottom line, not seeking to enact widespread change.

It can be said without fear of contradiction, however, that healthcare is in need of an overhaul, and the input of innovative thinkers is clearly much-needed. Bezos and Co. may yet prove to have been in the right place at the right time.

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CSR: Potential Positive Applications of Synthetic Biology

By
Hency Thacker
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Science and technology have made leaps of progress in the field of biotechnology. The power of technology is such, that scientists can modify microorganisms like E. coli by rewriting their genetic code to turn them into tiny living factories that produce biofuel. This is an example of products made possible by the advanced genetic-engineering technology known as synthetic biology, a term for which no internationally accepted definition exists.

Applications of synthetic biology are advancing beyond the manipulation of microbes to make desired substances. Strategies to release genetically engineered organisms into the environment to permanently alter entire populations of target species have been proposed as a means to control pollution, eradicate vectors of diseases, eliminate invasive species, and lend resilience to threatened plants and animals.

A possible game-changer with important potential benefits and risks, synthetic biology has been identified by international experts as an emerging issue of environmental concern with global implications and features as one of five topics in UN Environment’s recently published Frontiers Report.

Applications of synthetic biology

Many commercially available synthetic biology products have been developed to provide alternatives to existing high-value commodities, especially those dependent on the petroleum supply chain and non-renewable resources. Synthetic alternatives and replacements for substances conventionally derived from nature are also gaining ground in research and market spaces.

Synthetic biology has also opened up a new landscape for advanced materials with novel functionalities and performance, such as materials that can self-assemble or self-repair. The recent emergence of CRISPR (pronounced crisper and short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) as a gene-editing tool has enabled even more precise and inexpensive methods of engineering individual organisms, biological systems, and entire genomes.

Synthetic biology could indirectly benefit conservation efforts by allowing the development of artificial alternatives to commercial products normally sourced from the wild. For example, the blood of the horseshoe crab is a major biomedical commodity used to test pharmaceuticals for bacterial contamination. Unsustainable harvesting is pushing the species towards global extinction. A synthetic substitute has been developed that could reduce or replace the need to harvest the endangered crabs. Likewise, engineered microbes and microalgae capable of producing alternatives to omega-3 oils could lessen pressure on declining wild fish stocks.

However, with great power, comes great responsibility. The negative applications of technology by extremists can create a lot more damage than anticipated. Responsible utilisation of technology is required to ensure that the technological monster we are feeding, does not become bigger than mankind.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and inputs will genuinely make a difference to us. Please drop a line and help us do better.

Regards,
The CSR Journal Team

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