Social Investment - Could war have been prevented with a "Marshall Plan'?

Its a question that many a woulld be time traveller has mused over. With the benefit of hindsight, might we have been able to avoid wars if we'd acted differently  In this case, there no need for a flux capacitor to put it to the test.

, said former president Yushenko just days ago, remarking that unfortunately, he doesn't see this support for Ukraine in any US circles.

Lord Mandelson, on the other hand is falling over himself to deliver such a plan with a price tag of 300 billion dollars. 

The recent flurry of discussion on social investment took me back 7 years to 2008, when a letter to USAID called for their support in defusing a developing crisis.

The social investment proposal had been published a year earlier as "A Marshall Plan for Ukraine. I was reminded of it last year when Barack Obame spoke of :"What the West must do for Ukraine" I reflected on the strategy paper which USAID and the Senate had been called on to support when Obama and Biden sat on the Council for Foreign Relations

I wrote for Maidan on "What the West Wouldn't Do For Ukraine"

"It is proposed that the United States of America be actively engaged in supporting this project, financially and any other way possible. Ukraine has clearly demonstrated common will for democracy. Ukraine has also unilaterally taken the first critical step to fulfill this program, thus clearly demonstrating initiative and commitment to participation required in the original Marshall Plan sixty years ago. The US side is presumably attempting to foster democracy in another country, which never expressed much interest and shows little real interest now. That of course is Iraq, where recent estimates indicate a cost of $1.5 billion per week.

That same amount of money, spread over five years instead of one week, would more than cover the investment cost of the initial components of this project, and allow a reserve fund for creating new projects as Ukraine’s intelligentsia invents them in the Center for Social Enterprise. It is proposed that Ukraine and the US provide equal portions of this amount. Ukraine is certainly able to provide that level of funding, given that projects are designed with the same fiscal discipline employed in the traditional business sector. That means they pay for themselves, one way or another. "

A similar call for economic development over weapons had been made several years earlier, in Crimea:

"Just as the US now heavily uses smart bombs in warfare, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the equivalent is needed in aid efforts. It is not enough to spend, say, US$ 7 million dollars for five Tomahawk cruise missiles and then spend a fraction of that amount in building a peaceful community which does not merit targeting by missiles. Yet, that is what we have in this case."

The primary focus of this 'Marshall Plan' had been the de-institutionalisation of children by placement in loving family homes. This social investment was the subject of my Mixmarket article - 'Every Child Deserves a Loving Family' from which I quote:

“There is no substitute for a loving family environment for growing children. Existing state care institutions do not and cannot possibly provide this – despite occasional, lingering claims that state care is the best care for children. This attitude is a holdover from Soviet times when the state was idealized as the best possible caretaker for all, including children. Stark reality does not support that notion.

While this section has strong focus on financial aspects for reforming childcare in Ukraine, these are just financial numbers to demonstrate that this can be done for an overall, long-term cost reduction to state budget. That is to say, simply, this reform program is at the least financially feasible. The barrier between old and new is the cost of the transitional phase."

It wasn't the kind of thing the Social Enterprise Coalition were interested in, when we joined them in 2006. The focus of our work was beyond their own, I was told,    

Believe it or not, it was David Cameron, speaking of social impact investment who seems to have tuned in, even describing a project to place children in loving family homes. Had my petitiion to make social investment government policy hit the target?     

So did social enterprise support organisations now understand what we were doing? Not a chance.

"There's a lot of criticism online about your work in Ukraine" sniped Nick Temple on David Floyd's blog, 

He was right, speaking up about 'Death Camps, For Children' caused a lot of hostiity from those who turned a wilful blind eye 

The Sunday Times says it 5 years later

“We are all guilty of inaction. The violation of human rights in Ukraine is one of the pressing issues of our day. The suppression of freedom of speech, the control of the right of assembly, the oppressive use of the tax police and the blatant banditry of the road police however all pale into insignificance when compared to the wanton starvation of disabled children by those whom the state has empowered to protect them.   “

"This story will reverberate right around the world and so it should. Ukraine will be judged not by the actions of this cruel few but on how the case is now handled by the authorities. However, we must also look to ourselves for it is no longer acceptable to look the other way.

The Ukrainian maxim: “I saw nothing, my home is on the other side of the village” has no place in the modern world. If by our deliberate blindness, children are allowed to suffer such depravities then, by our inaction, we are all guilty."

"Suppression of freedom of speech"? Tell me about it.

David Floyd meanwhile opines on the B Corporation movement pointing out that the model has created far less traction than the Community Interest Company, which bears a strong resemblance to what P-CED introduced to the UK in 2004, a business which commits the majority of its profit to social objectives, a "profit for purpose' approach as we desribed it.  .

In 2009, I invited collaboration with B Corporations when I wrote to BLabs about our work in Ukraine   I wrote to Richard Branson's Virgin Unite with similar aims, after he had spoken at Davos of the need for business to focus more on social problems. The event then known as the Ukrainian lunch was hosted by oligarch Victor Pinchuk, a friend to both Branson and Tony Blair.

The EU had also been asked for support and as a crisis turned to violence in February 2014, I forwarded a letter to local MEPs from peace activist at Maidan who included  a 'Marshall Plan'  in their request for action. Again a blind eye and a deaf ear.

Almost as I wrote, there were Pinchuk, Blair and Branson at Davos, with a key theme of the 'Marshall Plan' of how capitalism could deliver both financial and social return. As intoduced to McKinsey on their MixMarket platform where it became one of the most popular articles on the subject of changing capitalism for social benefit.

Listen now to Blair, Branson and Pinchuk talk the walk, but don't fall into the trap of believing that they will do anything social:  

As our late founder put it in 2007:

'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a "top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way. '

The plan was offered free for Ukraine's government to use, on one condition, that they act on the matter of childcare institutions

"It is not enough to help these kids without dealing with the causes -- primarily corruption and displacement of Ukraine's cash and resources -- that put children in such conditions to begin with.  This systemic recognition is at least beginning to be understood.  The 'Marshall Plan' details it, and provides comprehensive solutions with a financial net-cost to government over seven years of: zero.

That's about as well as it can be done.  It will work, and it must be done if Ukraine wants to become a member of civilized nations.  US and Europe can and should help, but only after first conditions are met unilaterally by Ukraine -- the sole condition on which I released the 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine.'  Those conditions are simple: take care of your children, all of them, close the orphanages and gulags, open the truth of the matter, and never try to hide any of it again.  That is underway.  Ukraine's government took the initiative.  It is now appropriate and necessary for the US and Europe to provide interim assistance, guidance, and models to bring the core metric -- child care -- to modern, civilized standards from the barbarism that has heretofore prevailed.  Even despite Kyiv's ongoing political convulsions stemming from democratic development -- the worst possible form of government except all the others that have been tried, as Churchill put it -- Ukraine is now on track to become a member of the club of civilized nations of the world, realize its potential, grow up, and be adult rather than petulant hooligans fighting in a playground sandbox."

Humanity hanging on a cross of iron

More than 60 years have passed since the Allied commander during WW2 spoke of the human cost of war: 

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron". Dwight D. Eisenhower,

In Ukraine, the costs in terms of human life are considerable. Few would have known that the passengers of flight MK17 lay so close to where we'd spoken out about corruption, in Torez. In the Guardian I was censored from participating, when I introduced John Elkington, Mark Kramer and Jo Confino to the argument for investing in childcare reform. The conversation was about how corporations could profit from solving social problems.

Couls this be why Sir Richard Branson is now so interested in Ukraine? By his own admission, he doesn't know much about the territory.

I was remimded of what was said a decade ago in an interview about P-CED

" I believe in the people of Ukraine. It is Ukrainian people where I find inspiration to go on working here. The vast majority of Ukrainians are decent, hard-working people. You have world-class universities, formidable intelligence, and enormous human potential. I simply cannot say that enough times, your human potential. It is your greatest national asset and, once unleashed, will bring Ukraine among the forefront of leading countries in the world. My role in Ukraine is to help unleash that potential. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m here mainly as human being, by the way, not as American, but being an American, there are certain things I can do to help that happen. Given hundreds of other countries in the world that I could work in, I see Ukraine as the best, most promising country to spend my limited life time. "

That says it all really. Social investment is divided between those who see the potential for financial return and those for whom people are the bottom line.    

it seems to be about profit first, people second. Take the example of The British Council who were introduced to the 'Marshall Plan' when we responded to their solicitation for partners in 2010. Though supported by goverment funding from our taxes, we learned eventually that they expected parners to make a financial contribution. Our partners were civic and human rights actives, their were the oligarchs who caused most if not all of the social problems.  They didn't mind helping themselves to our work on social enterprise development however.