ABSTRACT

The literature on ‘conflict-sensitive’ business practices has burgeoned in recent years. Yet there remains a critical knowledge gap on the value of incorporating ‘conflict-sensitivity’ systematically to business environment reforms (BER) advanced by the public sector and its international partners. Wars and protracted conflicts reshape market environments in deeply distortive ways. The resulting transformation often enlarges the informal sector at the expense of formal state institutions, while it also reinforces high dependence on foreign aid and investments. Simultaneously, policy communication channels also become disrupted and unreliable. The existing BER literature remains generally insensitive to these peculiarities. Drawing on a case study of Sierra Leone, this article explores the implications of these omissions and shows that BER may even bring about adverse effects when the peculiarities of these conflict-generated market distortions are neglected. In order to avoid negative repercussions, conflict-sensitive BER needs to take into account the multiplicity of business environments and the heterogeneity of business actors operating within conflict-affected nations.

摘要

近年来，有关“对冲突敏感”的商业惯例的文献迅速发展。然而，在将“冲突敏感性”系统地纳入公共部门及其国际合作伙伴推进的商业环境改革（BER）的价值方面，仍然存在严重的知识差距。战争和旷日持久的冲突以严重扭曲的方式重塑了市场环境。随之而来的转型通常以牺牲正规国家机构为代价来扩大非正规部门，同时也加剧了对外国援助和投资的高度依赖。同时，政策沟通渠道也变得混乱和不可靠。现有的BER文献通常对这些特性不敏感。借鉴塞拉利昂的案例研究，本文探讨了这些遗漏的含义，并表明，如果忽略了这些由冲突引起的市场扭曲的特殊性，那么BER甚至可能带来不利影响。为了避免产生负面影响，对冲突敏感的BER需要考虑到多种商业环境以及在受冲突影响的国家/地区内运作的商业参与者的异质性。