SCN News, No.25, Gva., 2002.
This is one more post-mortem to the partially-called-off UNICEF McDonalds (public-private) partnership to which so many of us reacted.
I hesitate a bit philosophising about it any more, because it just gives this and other transnationals even more exposure.
A lot has already been said about this deal gone sour.
But be it as it may, November 20th, World Children’s Day is gone.
A McDonaldisation of that Day was not to be after all.
The prompt and forceful mobilization of opponents to the deal from within and without UNICEF is to be credited for it: it paid off – as it should have, even if most components of the UNICEF-McD-world-partnership were called off at the eleventh hour.
This affair reminds me of the fabled story of the fight of the mongoose and the snake: Both are of about the same strength, but invariably the mongoose wins – it is more resourceful and it organizes its strategy better to strike. Transnationals are the mongoose; the UN organisations, in this example, are the snake.
It is the asymmetry in the use of market power what makes for the skewedness of the outcome.
The McDonalds of this world always end up having the upper hand in terms of bottom dollars…
Particularly in nutrition, we have had a long history of these controversies with the milk industry as Patti Rundall’s article ably points out.
Transnational corporations wash their consciences through partnerships like these.
They exploit them for visibility, for enhancing corporate image and ultimately to (‘mongoosely’) increase their market share.
Did McD “raise the profile of children’s health issues”, as they claimed in a clever gimmick including 20 million Halloween charity boxes placed in their US outlets November 11th to 31st? No. Charity boxes do not do the trick, or treat the basic causes of children’s preventable ill-health and malnutrition around the world.
Central here is the fact that UNICEF can simply not be an enabler of corporate activities especially if corporate advertising manipulates children. UNICEF’s mission is to protect children.
There is nothing wrong with corporate social responsibility, if genuine.
The question is, where is the dividing line?
A good corporate reputation is earned by honest, socially responsible behaviour and integrity over the years and not by publicising corporate connections with well-thought-of organisations, without making meaningful changes in the practices they are rightfully criticised for.
Long term relationships of a better kind than those of the mongoose-snake type are needed for that.
But UNICEF welcomed McD’s corporate responsibility in raising funds for children.
It wanted to harness corporate globalisation to serve children in the best way possible.
It wanted to reach and involve a wider audience through this partnership to get them an opportunity to interact with UNICEF.
It still thinks McD is committed to children’s causes (Ronald McD Charities gave $5 million to UNICEF in 2000 and stands to give 5 million more shortly).
It thinks McD demonstrates leadership to advance the children’s agenda.
It says they are not recommending children eat burgers and are thus not endorsing fast food.
Pronouncements like some of these make it harder for genuine critics of McD to make it clear to the public that, as a corporation, it is not as good as their reputation/image – boosted/enhanced by their partnership with a UN body….and reputation, these days, has come to have an increasing commercial value.
We rather let McD have the reputation it deserves and do not de-legitimise any other means of motivating them to behave in a more socially responsible manner. As history shows us, a mixture of dialogue and pressure/confrontation are usually needed to achieve that.
In short, UNICEF (especially headquarters with no consultation) can simply not have it both ways: stand for higher principles and take tarnished corporate money. This is bound, as it did, to divide their own staff and to mobilise a concerned sector of civil society.
Ultimately, the issue is not only about whether McD aggressively promotes fast food that contributes to ill-health and poor nutrition and to a junk food culture; it is about a UN agency hesitating (did they really?) about whether to go ahead or not with a (‘snakish’) partnership like this.
That is what is worrisome.
[From a long term harm perspective, one cannot but draw the parallel with the tobacco industry; a partnership with them would be unthinkable; so why are the standards in this case so different?].
On the positive side, I celebrate the staff’s and civil society’s brave and forceful response to this issue. With unified, widely shared purposes, we can win many more such battles.
Claudio Schuftan, Saigon
schuftan@gmail.com