I attended last week’s Trialogue Making CSI Matter conference anxious that the presentations would focus on the newly legislated Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Best Practice, how and why to comply and, if not, on the importance of corporates having a social conscience.
Prior to the conference it was my experience that a growing number of corporate social investment (CSI) managers were beginning to understand the business case for good CSI. These managers were starting to talk more openly of the reputational, branding and staff development benefits. It seemed that CSI was being taken more seriously by corporates, partly necessitated by the codes compliance and partly because of the development opportunity that good CSI practice offers.
I have always been concerned about how corporates can influence the political landscape in South Africa. Although considerable corporate activity takes place through high-level institutions, such as Nedlac, the Big Business Working Group, the President’s Investment Council, the Black Management Forum and Busa, not every corporate is represented or plays a role. Besides, the real political challenge in South Africa is what is happening in the second economy, whether people who live there feel politically and economically included and whether corporates can do something about that.
So, when one of the early speakers, Dr Nomsa Masuku from Standard Bank, opened her presentation saying “Democracy is hard work”, she had my attention. She said the real essence of good CSI is the role corporates can play in consolidating democracy by coming to grips with the issue of social exclusion.
Her perspective articulated the political role corporate CSI initiatives play in the health of a developing democracy. This is not to diminish the importance of corporates engaging with people and their communities economically and sustainably at the bottom of the pyramid.
In the 2006 World Competitiveness Yearbook South Africa was ranked sixth out of the world’s top 61 economies in the area of CSI. After attending the conference, this came as no surprise. The quality of the speakers, the extent of the projects in which they invest and the reach of these projects are awe-inspiring and show that many of South Africa’s corporates make a massive contribution to social inclusion in our society.
But a word of caution: social exclusion doesn’t happen only to the poor.Sadly, many rich people, rich corporates and rich countries exclude themselves from our global challenges, from building democracy to the alleviation of poverty. In our own country it astounds me how few South Africans, of all colours, have visited the Apartheid Museum; it baffles me how few white South Africans have visited a black township; and it haunts me that many of the “haves” exclude themselves from the circumstances of the “have-nots”.
With luck this is changing. It is encouraging to hear what corporate CSI departments do, how they re-evaluate their role and how they move from chequebook donations to developmental investment. It is exciting to see how many staff members in these corporates engage in volunteering activities. FirstRand, for example, has 10Â 000 volunteers out of a staff complement of 36Â 000 people.
If the gap between the first and the second economy is a South African problem, it is undoubtedly a global one, with two-thirds of the world population considered to be poor. I believe much of our corporate CSI activity represents global best practice and will increasingly be taken seriously as a global benchmark, particularly because the lessons for the global community relate to the issue of inclusion/exclusion and the consequent improvements in their economic and political landscapes.
Steuart Pennington is editor of The Good News