CSR & globalisation: in hearts and minds?

Some international corporations are aware of the importance of CSR as well as governments of "developed" countries. Such corporations encourage, facilitate and enforce their employees to perform environmentally and socially as they do financially.

This is not the case in the Middle East and particularly in Egypt. Some corporations do not take CSR seriously. From my past experience, I found that the majority of corporations talk about it in public, establish a project here or there but are they sustainable?

Corporations have different programmes and projects, but how many of them are effective and really contribute to the surrounding community/environment? Very few are designed correctly or even designed to be a real added value to the community. Do such corporations have implementation tools, do they measure their success, do they report the actual figures?

There should be some local measures or scale to report the performance of different corporations equally.

Moreover, implementation tools are essential for the "real" success of CSR projects as well as measuring tools. The above are to be designed to guarantee the sustainability of such projects. Only then, corporations will have integrity, respect and honest social responsibility.

Another issue is that corporations need to communicate the benefits of CSR with their internal and external stakeholders first, before they start to invest in establishing programmes, measurements and implementation tools.

Local people have to know also that CSR is their right that has emerged from globalisation, and should encourage and enforce corporations to play their role in the social and environmental field.

Governments should be efficient in economic integration, transparent, democratic etc to secure the social benefit to their communities that are disadvantaged by globalisation. In other words, social dimension in globalisation needs democratic and effective countries to manage the integration into global economy and to provide social and economic opportunity and security. If countries are not able to make corporations share responsibility, communities and countries themselves will be excluded from globalisation.

Finally "we" as developing nations should make sure to harass globalisation to serve social as well as economic goals.


by Amr M El Kammash, International Development & Environmental Expert/SETTEC Consultant