CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

IN NIGERIA
SOCIAL INITIATIVES.

PRESENTED BY:

MELODY CHUKS
melomovic@yahoo.com

#OVHEnergyProdigy
 Corporate Social Responsibility is becoming progressively essential to
today’s candidates. Companies that offer a workplace and corporate culture of
metculuosing about important social effects can be successful at both business
and giving back to the entire society. It is believed that C.S.R. initiations present
in Nigeria, rose from the operations of Multinational Companies’ in the
extraction sector of the Nigerian economy, most especially, the oil sector;
varying operations in communities which evidently resulted to infringes as gas
flaring, waste spillages, societal swirl and dumping of toxic wastes in rivers,
destroying sources of income leading to widespread poverty. Commutatively,
this raised awareness over the roles of businesses in the Nigerian economy.
Apart from operations from the M.N.C.’s, the failure by the Nigerian
government to comply to their mandatory obligation of providing infrastructure
has made these M.N.C.’s grow into government attributes with society
depending and targeting M.N.C.’s to solve their related problems. Government
from all levels have not helped either. This has amounted from the immense
corruption, weak institutional framework, lack of limpidness and accountability
amidst officials and terrible governance among other rising issues.
Evidently, C.S.R. opportunities in Nigeria have been haphazard, in a way
which provides a definite engagement of businesses in the society but have been
culturally appealed, reflecting the religion, ethnicity, norms and mutual lifestyle
of the people which involves togetherness and unanimity. As such, these
initiatives have been mostly elective and philanthropic, characterised by
donations and community growth. Most corporate entities such as the financial
institutions are taking C.S.R. initiatives seriously via varying departments and
annual environmental publications/reports. Some of these projects include
provision of pipe borne water, youth empowerment, school and health-care
centres for communities.
The following will explore the sagacity of C.S.R. as well as key initiatives
pertaining to Nigeria, in order to strengthen the conceptuality as well as to
encourage acceptable behaviour in large and small businesses in the country,
critically analysing the institutional determinants which are apparently most
needed as seen in the nation, being the “Giants of Africa”.
Organisations need to donate time to pro-bono work which can greatly
drive societal change and promote environmental sustainability through
innovative solutions, along with government and non-profit organisations: This
is essentially not just for big businesses as this evidently can keep the streets of
Nigeria clean again and free from environmental hazards; swaying the talent
and resources within an organisation to build strength for the economy’s social
sector while supporting a wide range of elbow grease for disaster relief,
education, diversity, general development, regional health and more via applied
technology, continuous transformation and sustainable change approaches.
Through these technological applications can the “science life application”
trademark policy be derived, which entails the combination of idle computing
devices across a global network to support projects like cancer treatment
research and other health related issues. This invariably will help boost
students’ interest in science and technology through innovative postulated
solutions to everyday problems, aiding undeserved communities with general
empowerment to achieving their social goals through social responsibility
programs and inter-cultural convention as key tenets of an allegiance to “social
peace” and “stable remunerative development”.
Adopting charity as an extensive scheme can be a core value for
embracing drive change: charitable groups with charitable organisations to
donate school and lifestyle supplies to those in need, on the concept of tenable
giving through a Hybrid Ideal for-profit business model which can overtime
expand to programs underpinning a wide range of services for those in need;
Services which can further yield job investments, social entrepreneurship and
spatial integration. Non-profit initiatives can also be ideal but not as effective as
the for-profit. These services include youth training, veteran career; and refugee
resource networking should be used as a platform to provide members with
channels to participate in mentorships and volunteering opportunities through
their volunteering marketplace. It is high time organisations considered “Data-
driven humanistic philanthropy” to uncover racial injustice, translating contexts
and publications through an open-sourced platform to connect communities
with jobs, enhancing economic worldwide mobility through three main pillars -
(i) the environment (ii) sustainable design and buying (iii) investment; also,
encouraging I.T. partners and community inhabitants to take full upper hand of
renewable energy (e.g. significantly reducing water use and spillages from
manufacturing industries) thus, addressing community challenges, global chain
responsibility and eventually, a troth to giving more than collecting.
Similar to donations, a percentage of organisations’ equity should be set
aside for allotment in societies where employees work and settle (summing up
C.S.R. with a quote - “The business of business is business”): A percentage to
those firms non-profiting and another to community initiatives which have thus,
been mentioned. It is a model very simple to understand and equally generating
income for various communities, improving life standards. More like a policy,
organisational schemes and C.S.R.’s must align with and be integrated into a
business model to be successful. It is either companies are (i) complying with
the law (ii) failing to comply or (iii) going beyond the law; but all risks have to
be bound legally, for the intents of achieving long-term profits and stockholder
trust through feasible public relations and optimum ethical standards to reduce
future business risks by taking full liability of corporate actions.
It is better to loose money than to loose trust. Responsibility magnifies trust as
seen in a firm’s efforts around community development. These responsibilities
require not just words on papers but immediate actions forcefully driven by (i)
Increased Affluence (ii) Ecological Sustainability (iii) Globalisation (iv) Free
flow of Information and lastly, (v) Power of the Brand.
Nigeria must “walk the walk”, not “talk the talk”.