Of course everybody nowadays knows the CSR producer and trade organizations like e.g. OXFAM, Fairtrade, Max Havelaar and Rainbow Alliance, however we rarely come across CSR concepts and principles applied in the design and implementation of development projects and programmes.
Quite a few of an interesting mix of organizations working in development cooperation are member of the KAURI CSR Network in Belgium: BTC, ATOL, Broederlijk Delen, CDI Bwamanda, CFP, Dunya, Durabilis, Grontmij, Living Stone Centrum, Ondernemers zonder Grenzen, Oxfam, PCM Group, Plan, South Research, Trias, UNICEF, VAIS, VLIR-UOS, Vredeseilanden, VVOB, WWF and ZuidDag.
When experiencing this recent revived interest in sustainability it is quite remarkable that this concept was already mentioned in the first Lomé Convention in 1975 and formed a key quality criteria of proposals at the launch of Project Cycle Management in 1993 (government policy, appropriate technology, environment, gender, social-cultural, ownership, finance and management / expertise).
Having read many terms of reference for studies, proposals, monitoring and evaluation reports from different institutions, sustainability never seemed and still does not really have become an issue in Development Cooperation….
Actually in the light of this revived public concern on CSR in the North it is quite worrying that we still continue to observe a lot of pretty old fashioned approaches in development projects and programmes in e.g. trade and SME development, agriculture, irrigation, social projects, education, and even health without serious alerts, assumptions or corrective measures to assure social responsibility in construction, production, waste management, transport, HRM, resource management, etc.. Actually the above-mentioned initial criteria may still apply … However nobody actually seems to really bother. The development actors just continue to make the same mistakes over and over again but now in the South.
What is the role we in the North should play in this context? I fear that CSR might become the new (paternalistic) development message from the North to the South particularly because we have ‘just’ started and have so much more to learn ourselves.
And do the CSR principles in the North actually apply on a one-to-one basis to the South? How should we go about it? And how should we test applicability of the lessons learnt in the North? How much is ‘culture’ in the South playing a role?
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