Inventors: Gustavo Almeida & Dr. Joao Costa, VOI Social Impact
More information: Making peace & VOI website
VOI Social Impact is new social enterprise based around Dr Costa’s PhD research, which was carried out at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge.
VOI, which stands for “Veil of Ignorance” is a proven methodology to promote social cohesion in fragile conflict-torn settings, and the inventors now seek to share their approach more widely to address a range of societal issues in low and middle income countries.
The organisation’s work so far has focused on public sector organisations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Guinea-Bissau, with their first project working successfully with two small villages to reduce tensions between them.
While the public sector work will continue, the focus of this Development i-Teams project is to look at the potential to use this methodology with private sector organisations. There are many sectors such as agriculture, energy, mining, infrastructure and tourism, where commercial operations can come into conflict with local populations. Some of these companies need a social license to operate, but licenses alone do not always address the actual issues.
The inventors’ aim is to use VOI’s toolkit to promote genuine social cohesion and help companies improve their working practices by working with their local communities in a structured way, for the benefit of everyone concerned. To quote Dr. Costa, “I would want the VOI methodology to be the first port of call for organisations trying to improve social cohesion in areas affected by violence. I would like to see it being used by a wide range of reputable institutions, producing good results and being improved over time.”
The goal for the i-Team is to investigate the current approaches used by companies in fragile settings, and to see how VOI can integrate with their existing practices to improve the outcomes. Questions include : What problems do companies and the communities they impact currently experience, and how can VOI help? Who would be the target decision-makers in private sector entities that VOI should approach in its commercial phase? Would this type of training and toolkit-based approach be viable for companies to implement, and if so, what support would VOI need to put in place for them?