Staying away from Polokwane’s excitement, I thought that in the spirit of the season we should look at the giving that corporate South Africa should be doing. This happens through corporate social investment/responsibility (CSI/R), or whatever title it might be given.
There are as many supporters and opponents of CSI/R as there are definitions of it. The view of The World Business Council for Sustainable Developments is that it ‘is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development, while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at largeâ€.
This view is in line with the Codes of Good Practice, which also differentiates CSI/R from charitable giving as it sets up concrete objectives that need to be met by the recipients.
Often our view of CSI/R is ambiguous, which is a result of its legacy and the ideological contradictions it presents.
There are myriad reasons to explain this, among which is the view that business should give purely out of goodness.
Says author and scholar Joel Bakan: ‘The benevolent rhetoric and deeds of socially responsible corporates to create attractive corporate images is just that. They do not, however, change the corporate institutional nature: its unblinking commitment to its own interest.â€
Points that need to be taken into account are:
The amounts ‘given†are often seen as a drop in the ocean considering the sea of need. Targets set by the codes (for example 1% of net profit after tax) should be seen as the bare minimum that corporates strive for, not the standard.
The internal and perennial debate within corporates about giving. These debates invariably gravitate around focus areas and budgets, but are generally narrow and lack empathy.
The legacy of giving to projects favoured by the chief executives or other executives rather than to those where the need is greatest.
CSI/R giving is part of the competitive terrain for business, which results in a piecemeal approach rather than holistic interventions. This leads to negligible pockets of success that do not act as catalysts for development but lead to dependency.
The South African situation presents a challenge because business is seen largely to have colluded with the apartheid system and/or benefited from it.
In these circumstances CSI/R must play a role in restorative justice or it will merely present a friendly face without seeking to transform and be a legitimate contributor to socio-economic upliftment.
To achieve this, CSI/R interventions should be premised on the following:
The process should be part of the strategic and sustainable objectives for of business and should be subject to rigorous governance and resourcing.
A clear understanding and acceptance of what the priorities are for the particular community in which the company wants to be involved. This can be achieved by a comprehensive dialogue with the communities and their leadership.
A commitment of resources that is sustainable for the duration of the intervention, rather than based on the whims of the corporate affairs department or the chief executive.
Properly articulated deliverables for the intervention and a strategy for how the ownership will belong to the community or how the community will benefit from the intervention. Such development ‘must represent the whole gamut of change by which the entire social system, tuned to the diverse basic needs and desires of individuals and social groups within that system, moves away from a condition of life widely perceived as unsatisfactory towards a situation or condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually ‘better’.
‘An intervention so described would be one that could meet the requirements of improving self-esteem and social stability and removing the legacy of other discredited programmes, thus achieving socio-economic and political justice,†Bakan writes.
There should be a clear appreciation by the corporates of the value of having made a contribution to a developing community.
More than helping business redeem itself from corporate debacles, CSI/R can assist business to make a contribution to the transformation of South Africa by improving the material conditions for the masses. BEE should be the vanguard for this.