'Peace Collection' brand a must for Sri Lanka!

Rohantha Athukorala

I am not a specialist on guerrilla warfare but, I have noticed recently that it is very fashionable to talk on terrorism. But the more I research, the more I see the complexity of this subject making it less fashionable and being confined to a select few.

Latest data say that in 2006 alone, over a 14,600 attacks took place across the world which means that a staggering 40 attacks on average per day.

The most targeted countries have been Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Turkey, Jordan, Spain and UK and the forecast is that the next phase will be the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) so that the devastation is severe.

A key point to note is that from all the terrorist organisations of the world, the LTTE is branded as the most brutal.

The LTTE has not only wiped away the political leadership of Sri Lanka in the last 15 years, but has also taken away their very own senior ranks of the LTTE it self.

Whilst Sri Lanka is waging war on this most lethal terrorist organisation of the world - LTTE, I feel it's about time that the country get-together and drive the other elements of Peace building like economic development and livelihood development so that economic develop itself fosters peace in the country. One of the biggest barriers for producers in the once war torn Eastern province is market access.

Many INGOs and NGOs have done capacity development in the current strategy of developing livelihood but the key issue is finding a market to purchase the produce.

Peace Collection Brand

I am proposing that Sri Lanka launch a Peace Collection brand .This could be a collection of products that are produced by the once war torn villages of Sri Lanka, which can be branded and targeted to the AB Socio Economic groups of the country who are quite distance from the reality on the on-going war.

Ideally, this should be a range of speciality products which are in line with the lifestyles of the upper income consumer groups who are prepared to pay a premium price as their contribution for livelihood development in the war torn areas of the country.

The products can be speciality rice from Ampara, Bees Honey from Lahugala or Mango Jam from Trincomalee but all these go under Peace Collection brand so that shelf space is assured in a Colombo supermarket.

Farmer clusters

The brand has to be nurtured from the grass roots where farmers are clustered to a particular concentrated geographical area where a given product can be grown and prepared.

It can be gourmet rice, bees honey, dried fruit, blood clenching herbs like Ranawara or Polpala, it can be even wholesome fruit jam line like the famous mango jam from Trincomalee or the cashew from the north of Mannar.

These farmers' clusters can be linked to a rural enterprise network that collects packages and handles the logistics up to the warehouse of a supermarket chain.

Private sector - linkage

From a front end integration strategy a typical private sector organisation can link their company with a set of farmers who come from a particular village, so that the training and equipment can be provided as a corporate social responsibility initiative (CSR) which can be evaluated on a yearly basis scientifically through many social research agencies.

The key performance indicators could be the overall improvements on the quality of life and the visible economic development that has taken place.

Owners of the brand - Chambers

Based on the business model of the Peace Collection the best owners will be the Chambers. The logic being the Chambers are linked to the North and East entrepreneurs and producers through the respective regional chambers and hence they are in a Ideal situation to play custodian to the brand.

The Chambers can also act as the facilitator between the supermarket chain and producers. Hence the integrative role between backward integration and forward integration can be done by a chamber.

Communication strategies

The best technique to create awareness among the target customer groups are a strong viral marketing campaign via e mail and SMS followed by a touch point experience at the point of sale by way of the exclusive eye catching Peace Collection corner at one's own supermarket. May be we can showcase the Peace collections brands in a dedicated gondola, followed with a taste session that can lead to a real purchase of the brand.

This can be extended to driving a Peace Meal at top end restaurants like the Gallery cafe, or Tintagel where Sri Lanka can showcase the Peace Menu that can be extended to an on flight meal.

Cost of the War - 3.8 per cent of GDP

Whilst Sri Lanka spends around four percent of GDP on war per year, if we take a closer look at South Asia where we see the region emerging as one of the most militarised regions in the world with military spending catapulting from 13.4 billion dollars to over 20 billion dollars with India and Pakistan making it to the top 15 countries in the world in fighting terrorism.

Sri Lanka on the other hand emerges with a 36 dollars per capita defence expenditure which is once again Stella number for a small country like ours. We also see that there is a 618 per cent increase in the number of armed personnel within a fifteen-year time period, which explains the issue at hand that the world needs to address. The number of soldiers per 1000 is around 6.1 which adds to the cost of the war on terrorism.

Military developments in South Asia

In this backdrop, I strongly feel it's time that we develop linkages between the war torn village and the private sector and the Peace collection brand becomes the vehicle may be we can see Peace in action.

At the end of the day if we can systematically develop the country and mitigate the disparity between regions, and the manifestation of the root causes for terrorism which is an analogy that even the anti terrorism unit in Europe has not been able to break. Now it's up to us to make this happen.