Assignment: 3

Aditi Gangwar #2

Kanak #10

Introduction to the article •IN THE MAKING: CSR AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN SOUTH ASIATitle

•2012Year

•Mama CashSupporting Organization

•This review aims to build an understanding of CSR initiatives and assess the position of women's rights concerns in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Objective

•This Article is the summary of the study carried out by Manjima Bhattachrjya “In the Making: CSR and Women's Rights in South Asia” for SAWF (South Asia Women's Fund).

Abstract

CSR & Women’s Rights

• For businesses worldwide, corporate social responsibility has come to be understood as a broader commitment to stakeholders.

• In theory CSR is getting aligned with Economist John Elkington's principle of the Triple Bottom Line made up of people, planet and profit.

• It would seem that women's rights would find a prominent place of focus within these three concerns. However, in practice, Corporations have limited focus on women's rights or on issues related to women.

CSR IN SOUTH ASIAChallenges: Poverty, inequality, conflict, lack of infrastructure, access to basic resources, lack of transparency and information sharing in businesses.

India and Sri Lanka have a greater awareness of CSR.

CSR focus areas: Education and health, mostly for underprivileged children. With little innovation.

In Nepal and Pakistan, where business is still evolving, CSR is much less evolved.

Bangladesh’s garments sector is more integrated into the supply chain and therefore, experiences more CSR. Same with carpet Industry in Pakistan and Nepal.

Relation of CSR’s success rate with the country’s link to its integration in the global supply chain.

Opportunity: CSR in these countries is in the initial stage and therefore it is an opportunity for women’s group to collaborate and associate themselves with other compatible groups to bring women’s right on the main front of the CSR Activities.

Countries discussed about

o Bangladesho Indiao Nepalo Pakistano Sri Lanka

Bangladesh

1. Bangladesh• Bangladesh’s industry is chiefly made up of SMEs in garment

manufacturing sector. • Loan defaults, sub-standard goods, opaque boardrooms and

limited accountability challenge good governance. • CSR came in Bangladesh with 1993 Harkin Bill passed in the USA

as according to it America threatened to boycott products made in Bangladesh alleging it was using child labor in factories.

• CSR became a buzzword in Bangladesh in the 2000s as companies announced informal incentives to encourage CSR.

• The turning point came in 2008, when the government said it would waive taxes by 10 per cent if the private sector spent a part of its income on CSR.

• Large NGOs such as the microfinance leaders Grameen Group and development giant BRAC, play a critical role in income-generation.

Bangladesh

• In Bangladesh Women form 90% of the workforce but very rarely CSR activities are meant for women. Research has shown gender discrimination and absence of environment which allow women to organize into collective for greater bargaining power.

• Companies usually like to collaborate with Large NGOs rather than local women’s group. Women's rights groups should see the banking sector as a potential ally and align with large business networks to find companies looking to do CSR work.

• But now many companies are moving ahead of the old set CSR activities and developing innovative ideas with large NGOs.

Examples of CSR In Bangladesh:

• Walmart Foundation and CARE have come together to train 2,500 workers in Dhaka's garment factories, all of whom are women under 30.

• A Grameen Group company, Grameen Adidas, develops low cost footwear so 'no one goes without shoes.

• Hathay Bunano a fair-wage manufacturing handicrafts for export consciously employs underprivileged women who are divorced, illiterate or disabled at its rural center.

India

2. India• CSR has been more prevalent in India as compared to

its other south Asian counterparts. In both public and private sectors.

• Earlier, government thought of making it compulsory for companies to spend 2% of their profits on CSR but ultimately a 6 Point CSR guideline was issued covering voluntary and ethical practices.

• Focus on education and health.• But now the approach is getting more scientific, with

stress on scalable, replicable, quantifiable and measurable models of implementing CSR and gauging its impact.

• Social venture capital organizations and social entrepreneurship initiatives have multiplied in the last few years providing critical solutions and services – water, health, housing, and energy – to the underprivileged.

India• Today, there is only superficial reference

to women’s right in most of the CSR activities. Only a handful of companies clearly state understanding of gender disparities and appoint professionals for the job.

• There is lack of transparency while carrying out CSR activities and most of the companies do not follow an open and transparent process of inviting applications and evaluating proposals.

• Dearth of trust between companies and NGOs.

• However on a brighter whole new generation of industrialists is more amenable to working with NGOs.

India• Business schools are

teaching CSR more seriously, and new and attractive models of firm-NGO partnerships are emerging.

• There is an environment of encouragement for innovative ideas, and platforms for these have increased.

• The women of prominent business families such as Rohini Nilekani, Sudha Murthy, Roshni Nadir and Nisaba Godrej, head the CSR wings of their organisations, which will help to bring focus on issues of women's rights.

Examples of CSR In India Mahindra Group's Nanhi Kalli project is an

education initiative but with a deeper understanding of the forces that keep girls from school.

Tata's Second Chance Internship Programme helps women return to work if they have taken a career break for gender reasons such as childbirth.

The Godrej group of companies supports the highly successful Teach For India venture and many other laudable programmes. Their recently launched think tank, the India Culture Lab, aims to add to the nation's intellectual capital.

Nepal

3. Nepal• The nation earns export income from garments,

pashmina and handicrafts. • Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in carpet

making and handicrafts are part of the supply chain of Western MNCs.

• The UN Global Compact brought CSR to Nepal in 2003. A strategic programme, the Compact helps businesses align their operations with high value human rights, labour welfare and other important matters.

• CSR is not yet part of the policy or legal framework but it was indirectly included in Nepal's Three Year Interim Plan (2007-2010).

Nepal• Companies are appointing CSR officers and examining

their social role, symbolizing that CSR is taking root in Nepal. The current trend is on making business sustainable.

• Many companies are focusing on using their own skills or acting in their own business interest like Yeti Airlines harnesses its expertise by delivering food and other aid in times of emergency. Hotel Association of Nepal promotes a waste management project called 'Hamro Nepal, Ramro Nepal'.

Nepal• Women's rights are present in the government's Three

Year Interim Plan but it is almost absent within CSR discussions.

• There are a few initiatives specifically for women and one such campaign comes from the Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Associations of Nepal (FWEAN).

• An NGO called Maiti, it supports a shelter for women rescued from trafficking.

Examples of CSR In Nepal

• Formation Carpet was awarded in 2006 for having a model factory. It started a crèche and educational facility HostelHainse for their weavers' children. It evolved into a scholarship fund, and is now a self-sustaining organisation, supporting the education of 1,500 children nationwide.

• Dabur Nepal, an independent company from India's Dabur Group, has a medicinal plant project to preserve natural reserves in Nepal. It has well- equipped greenhouses to help farmers cultivate Himalayan medicinal herbs.

Pakistan

4. Pakistan

• Pakistan's largest business segment is made up of SMEs in the carpet, sports goods and textiles sectors.

• CSR came in the 1990s through the Sialkot Partnership against child labour. It involved the government, the international labour organisation (ILO) and private stakeholders.

• To incentivize CSR, the UN Global Compact Pakistan has instituted a prize called 'Living the Responsible Business Award.'

Pakistan

• Multinationals undertake CSR in line with their global policy and factories servicing the global supply chain run such programmes.

• Children's education and public health are the preferred areas of intervention.

• Women are not the majority workforce in Pakistan's export-oriented businesses. However, the carpet industry employs a large number of women workers. As a result, companies undertake CSR for women in the production chain. Overall, however, women's rights as a target area of CSR seems fairly absent.

• Pakistan's labour unions are not very strong. The state has made very little effort to improve working conditions in general.

Examples of CSR in Pakistan• The National Bank of Pakistan patronises sports,

sponsoring and nurturing national sporting champions. It recently opened a new CSR wing at a sports complex in Karachi.

• Shell Pakistan's social investment' programmes include scholarship programmes, transforming a scavenger town into a model village and entrepreneurship workshops for students.

Sri Lanka

5.Sri Lanka

• Sri Lanka has a well-developed, largely export-based corporate sector as well as vibrant agriculture.

• CSR came into prominence with the introduction of multinational companies and the UN Global Compact.

• Then in 2003, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce started its Corporate Citizen Awards, which propelled many businesses to firm up a CSR policy. Having a CSR policy and implementing it are increasingly becoming the norm in Sri Lanka.

• Now, Ethical business and sustainable practices are increasingly presented as Sri Lanka's USP.

Sri Lanka• Sri Lanka has strong labour laws and policies in place,

but increasingly, there are worker-management tensions in the garment and plantation sectors.

• In Sri Lanka, CSR is transforming from charitable acts to a broader, more contemporary stakeholder approach. It is poised to be a differentiating element amongst businesses in the region, and is being seen as something that must be embraced and honed.

• Sri Lanka Apparel launched the 'Garments Without Guilt' campaign to make Sri Lanka a preferred destination for apparel manufacturing outsourcing.

• The focus is currently on the special role of CSR, where companies help in the recovery process, supporting internally displaced persons, or provide services for 'war heroes' or those injured during the war.

Examples of CSR in Sri Lanka • MAS holdings, one of the major apparel manufacturers in

the country, They have developed Women Go Beyond, a programme to educate and empower its 92 per cent female workforce. The Go Beyond framework has 4 points career advancement, work-life balance, rewarding excellence and community action.

• Telecommunications giant Etisalat distributes free laptops in rural schools, runs knowledge centres and libraries for deserving and deprived schools, has housing projects for disabled war heroes, among others, and an income generation scheme for rural housewives that makes grocery bags from recycled waste.

CRITIQUE

• This study is supported by Mama Cash. Mama Cash is the oldest international women's fund - established in the Netherlands in 1983. This study was carried out for South Asia Women's Fund. But this article has very limited mention on the women’s rights.

• Many studies have been carried out already on CSR in South Asia. Women’s right has not been explored on a large scale. Therefore, more emphasis on women’s right should have been given.

• No methodology has been given that how this study was carried out and what were the points to be kept in mind while carrying out the study.

• No Sample Size has been defined for the study.• No details have been given about who all were

surveyed under this study.

CRITIQUE• The Study is well structured under very clear and defined

headings. The matter has been handled quite well and in a tight manner with no lengthy and redundant description.

• The structure of the study is not formal as whole. This point can be further understood when we have a look at other studies on the same issue like ‘Survey on Corporate Social Responsibility in South Asia’ (2010) by Dr. B. N. F. Warnakulasooriya or ‘CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: AN EIGHT COUNTRY ANALYSIS’ by Ramon V. del Rosario. These two studies are very detailed with provision of well-defined objective, methodology, sample size, findings & discussion, recommendations, challenges, summary with appropriate justifications.

• No references for the whole study have been provided. Readers cannot trace back to the origin of data in case confusion occurs or just for further knowledge.

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