Join our Managers Sitati Wasilwa and Uday Bakhshi as they discuss APAC Assistance’s advanced Community Relations & Operational Resilience methods and their importance. They explain how APAC Assistance’s approach fosters positive community engagement, which is crucial for maintaining stability and minimizing conflicts in sensitive areas. By sharing real-life case studies, they illustrate how these strategies help companies navigate complex social landscapes, ensuring both the safety of their operations and the well-being of local communities. The video underscores the importance of building strong, resilient relationships and robust operational frameworks in volatile regions, making it a must-watch for professionals in industries such as energy, mining, and infrastructure development.
Multi-nationals often operating in high-risk, remote locations face credibly high exposure to risks. Building and maintaining effective community relations is integral for multinationals as a strategy for better security management. In effect, enhancing community relations would be critical in enabling multinationals to build operational resilience in high-risk environments.
Importance of Community Relations in Navigating Risks
Community relations help multinationals to decrease various risks from prominent actors in high-risk, remote environments. Multinationals with oil, gas, and mining infrastructure do not operate in a vacuum. This implies that there is a whole environment around them involving multiple stakeholders and the community. These actors and stakeholders, if not well managed, can pose major security, financial, and reputational risks for the organization. Such risks could severely impact operations and business.
It is important to note that at most times, the state or authorities in remote environments do not necessarily have the capabilities to deal with potential issues that may come up from incorrect engagement. For instance, the Highlands of Papua New Guinea present community relations challenges to multinationals which if not well handled, could become major security threats. Nigeria also presents interesting cases of the relevance of community relations for multinationals. There are deficiencies in community relations programs and this has affected the operations of multinationals such as Shell. In particular, Shell has experienced opposition to projects amid environmental pollution concerns among members of the local communities. As such, engaging and managing the community is an integral part of wide risk management and mitigation in high-risk and remote environments.
APAC Assistance’s Community Relations Support
Collectively, APAC Assistance’s directors, networks, and personnel have decades of experience in helping multinationals develop and maintain effective community relations in high-risk and remote environments. It is worth noting that community relations is not a monolith. This implies that community relations is an expensive undertaking that covers so many different aspects of not only managing relationships but also identifying and communicating appropriately with the stakeholders.
APAC Assistance has a robust track record of having assessed and implemented community relations plans and programs for companies in high-risk locations in Southeast Asia such as Papua New Guinea. We helped these companies identify shortcomings and incorrect approaches in their community relations programs. We have also evaluated such programs and policies. This arises from the fact that companies may have community relations, but do not necessarily budget, manage, or support community relations effectively to mitigate threats. APAC Assistance also has experience in using community events such as sports to help develop effective community relations.
Don’t wait for a crisis to test your preparedness. Partner with APAC Assistance and benefit from our proven expertise in safeguarding your operations against potential threats.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you protect your business and ensure the safety of your team. For more information about our services, please visit our website or contact our Regional Director, Bhargav Reddy at bhargav_reddy@apacassistance.com. Together, we can build a safer, more secure future for your company.