EU Ombudsman: People-centred business in development

Sent today to the EU Ombudsman in Brussels:

On June 5th last year in Brussels an EU hosted meeting took place to discuss the risk of business in development and would introduce the concept of a people-centred model of business to those attending:

"This event will create a much needed space for a discussion on the opportunities and risks of the private sector in development. It will introduce the concept of a people-centred business model and the added value it provides within partnerships."

Ten years ago. People-Centered Economic Development  an operational people-centred business was launched in the UK. The model derived from a position paper written in 1996 for the US President, describing a business which put people ahead of shareholder returns   

It was introduced to the UK with a business plan to tackle poverty, which said this:

"Enterprise for the primary objective of poverty relief, localized community economic development, and social support became the business model which guided P-CED’s efforts and development at a time in the US when terms such as ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social capitalism’ had not yet been coined.

"Traditional capitalism is an insufficient economic model allowing monetary outcomes as the bottom line with little regard to social needs. Bottom line must be taken one step further by at least some companies, past profit, to people. How profits are used is equally as important as creation of profits. Where profits can be brought to bear by willing individuals and companies to social benefit, so much the better. Moreover, this activity must be recognized and supported at government policy level as a badly needed, essential, and entirely legitimate enterprise activity.”

Since establishing in the Forest of Dean in 2006, I have made several appeals for support with our work to local MEPs

In 2008 I took the opportunity to submit an entry for the EU Citizens Consultation which introduced a 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine. From that paper I quote the following paragraph from the summary:

"This strategy places adequate funding for social benefit under control and management independent of government and the very obvious vicissitudes and conflicts inherent therein.

"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."

Those "in greatest need" had been idenfified as institutionalised disabled children  and our primary focus, to place all in loving family homes. 

A year later Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly spoke of the need for a people-centered economy.

"The anti-values of greed, individualism and exclusion should be replaced by solidarity, common good and inclusion. The objective of our economic and social activity should not be the limitless, endless, mindless accumulation of wealth in a profit-centred economy but rather a people-centred economy that guarantees human needs, human rights, and human security, as well as conserves life on earth. These should be universal values that underpin our ethical and moral responsibility."

In 2012 , MEP Sir Graham Watson was helpful in drawing the attention of Commission Michele Barnier to our work after I pointed out to him how closely it resembled the conclusions of the EU consultation on social business.

Commissioner Barnier's response was to say that these were concepts and ideas which had been developing in social innovation over the past decades and that I had not participated in their consultation. He suggested the possibility of fruitful colllaboration in future.

We however had been alone in publishing and sharing these ideas online since 1996 and of course in sharing a development proposal with the EU Citizens Consultation which remain online until 2012 when I raised my complaint about plagiarism. There is no need to participate in consultations on that which has already been shared in the public domain.

In spite of the suggestion of future collaboration, within a year we find our operational business model served up as a concept by salaried EU representatives - so much for soildarity, common good and inclusion.

In Ukraine, our founder has risked and lost his life while speaking out about those excluded. Our 'Marshall Plan' had created impact on government policy when several of its childcare recommendations were made government policy. I refer to doubling of fostercare allowances and a pledge for 400+ rehab centres for disabled children announced in 2007. We had argued:

“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.

"However, it is essential to not get lost in financial numbers and budgets. These are only important to show how this will work and will end up costing less money as the new program is fleshed out and the old program is closed. Most important is the welfare of each of these children. There are at this time, for example, numerous institutions across Ukraine where children die on a daily basis from little more than lack of knowledge about how to help them. The actual cost of helping them immediately is nothing more than one-day workshops for existing staff, to demonstrate basic, simple medical interventions common in the West. These institutions are generally closed to the outside world, difficult to access due to imposed secrecy, and are mostly in very rural areas where even the closest neighbors have no idea of the reality of these facilities.

"The point, again, is very simple: to protect safety, health, and security of each and every child in Ukraine. There is absolutely no reason why this cannot be done. EveryChild’s research, published less than a year ago, provides an excellent starting point. Dzherelo Children’s Rehabilitation Center in Lviv has years of experience and available expertise in caring for severely disabled children. It is noteworthy that Dzherelo must rely on private funding because Ukraine’s state budget will not pay for or support a program that is in every way superior to official state care. Many of Dzherelo’s clients are able to remain with their own families, and are transported by minivan to and from Dzherelo’s modern care facilities for basic, periodic medical treatment such as physical and occupational therapy."

What we knew at this time about the internats at Torez which was described in 'Death Camps: For Children" and another in Kalinovka would remain suppressed until 2011 when The Sunday Times published an article about Torez and in 2012 when BBC 4 broadcast 'Ukraine's Forgotten Children' feauring Kalinovka.

We needed and appealed for support from our MEPs among many others. It was not forthcoming.

According to Lumos, JK Rowling's charity, 367 million euros of EU funding have more recently been re-directed from supporting orphanages to placing children in loving family homes. They report

"A million children, particularly in poorer Eastern European countries, are separated from their families and placed in large institutions or orphanages. They are part of a global problem, with about eight million children in this plight worldwide, according to the charity. And the vast majority – 90 per cent – have parents but are taken from them for reasons such as family poverty or because the child is disabled or is from an ethnic minority.

"Infants who spend longer than six months in institutions suffer developmental and emotional difficulties throughout their childhood. Disabled children in institutions are 100 times more likely to die there than their able-bodied counterparts, according to Lumos. Rowling's charity works to help governments replace institutional and orphanage care with systems to care for children in families and communities."

Today, the EU promotes people-centred business as if neither we, nor these children had existed. That Klaus Rudischhauser and Gay Mitchell try to build reputation over their dead bodies, is beyond indefensible.

Raising awareness of corruption issues is difficult and dangerous enough without being undermined by those who are supposed to represent democracy in Europe. The kind of democracy that many Ukrainians aspire to be part of. 

Our work was introduced to the EU in good faith, in the hope of addressing the kind of social injustice which triggered recent conflict costing more lives and no doubt, in time, even greater expenditure of EU funds. .

As our late founder wrote when describing the need to protect our IP for social benefit..:

"Finally, is it acceptable to build projects with stolen property? What sort of results would that lead to? Can be build an ethical system based upon unethical behavior (such as violations of Intellectual Property Rights)?

"If we invent such a system, is it anything new? Or is it just a twist on the old system?

"One thing that can be collaborated openly is this: a Code of Ethics. But, whose ethics? What org(s) will enforce them, and how? Who decides who gets in, how, and why? "