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Executive Seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility
23rd September, 2003

By Nicole Farley & Christine Skeete

A one-day Executive Seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Canadian High Commission in Trinidad and the Community Tourism Foundation was held on September 22, 2003 at the Crowne Plaza Trinidad in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

The principal aim of the seminar was to enable business and civil society leaders to strengthen CSR and Social Investment practices and activities in the English-speaking Caribbean.  The seminar promoted increased resource sharing for CSR in the region and linked Caribbean-based CSR activities with hemispheric and international initiatives.

The results of a recent survey of CSR in the English-speaking Caribbean were presented by Richard Jones, Executive Trustee, Community Tourism Foundation.  Presentations were also made by Daniel Shepherd and William Robinson of the Inter-American Development Bank; Walter Price, Director Corporate Programs, Inter-American Foundation; Carlo Dade and Audra Jones of the Inter-American Foundation; Antoine Chevrier, Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development, Organization of American States; Brad Goggins, Center for Corporate Citizenship, Boston College; Christopher Sinckler, Executive Director, Caribbean Policy Development Centre; Patricia Robinson, Executive Director, Grace, Kennedy and Company Limited; Hugh Wilkinson of the Canada-based Hugh Wilkinson Consulting and several panelists from the corporate sector and non-governmental organisations.

The following presentation was made by William Robinson, the Inter-American Development Bank representative for Trinidad:

Remarks by William Robinson

Representative, Inter-American Development Bank

 Today modern corporations control an ever-increasing share of the technical, financial and human capital resources of our societies. With these they produce the goods and services that keep our economies moving.  They also produce the employment and wages that serve to effectively create and distribute wealth.

Governments on the other hand are facing a relative decline in the share of resources that they command and control.  Almost everywhere government resources and capacities are being stretched, yet at the same time we expect much more from our governments both local and national. Today ‘s societies and economic models demand that democratic government play an effective regulatory role in managing privately delivered public goods and services.  But the complexities of these functions are fast out-pacing government’s ability to meet these demands.   Limited human resources, inefficient and often ineffective bureaucracies and limited capital resources are holding back the ability of government to effectively and efficiently meet these new challenges.

What are we to do?

The choice is either greater taxation and significant upgrading of government capacity and resources to enable it to better carry out its functions independently, or the formulation of some new strategic partnerships between government and the business sector that will allow a sharing of some of the human, technical and managerial resources of the private sector with government.  Put another way we need an expansion of the use of private resources for public good.

All of you here today represent companies that are involved in one way or another with good corporate behaviour, or Corporate Social Responsibility as it is being called.  One of the background documents for this workshop is an inventory report on Corporate Social Responsibility actions currently being taken in the Caribbean. This report, prepared by the Caribbean Policy Development Centre, highlights the various forms that CSR actions have been taking of late, but I would like to invite you all to include in your deliberations here today some new expanded forms of CSR.  

Given the challenge of limited resources that face governments today, and recognizing the strong relative advantage of efficiency that the private sector has over the public sector, and recognizing too the unequal share of top managerial and technical human resources talent available to the private sector as compared with those in government, I invite you to think past the traditional notions of charity and community corporate action that speaks to public relations and a sense of local community support, and organize to take up the greater challenge of how can we more substantially bring the significant corporate capacities to better serve our societies at large, in areas of social services, training and education, peace and security and effective public good regulation? 

I put to you that this will only be achieved through a greater cooperation and coordination of effort  between business and government and I hasten to add between government and business.  A new partnership is needed, one in which there is greater collaboration and engagement between government, civil society and business on all levels of action, including policy and strategy as well as service delivery.  In the words of the UN Secretary General Kofi Anan at the inauguration of the UN Global Compact he stressed that “By working together to mobilize sustainable investment in the developing world, government, business and civil society give hope and opportunity to the world’s poorest”.

As recently as this Friday past I participated here in Port of Spain in a National Consultation on Social Development in Trinidad & Tobago. This was the culmination of a very broad public review of the basic framework for social policy that the government is currently developing.  As such I believe this was a tremendously positive approach by government.  But, conspicuous by its absence at this consultation, was participation from the private sector.   Those of us involved with Corporate Social Responsibility are not yet thinking strategically enough. Simply expanding the size and level of community action support and taking piecemeal actions in geographic problem areas will not by themselves allow us to achieve the overall levels of sustainable development, peace, stability and public good to which we aspire to contribute to.

This is not in any way meant to undervalue the very positive and constructive work that many corporations are doing at the national and local levels and even international levels.  But it is to say that we can go further.  We need to go further.   

As I noted at the outset, the challenge is to most effectively use the considerable resource potential that resides in the private sector to improve public policy and public action in the management and delivery of public services. 

I hope our discussions here today of the many positive experiences that you all have achieved in your work, in rising to the challenges of Corporate Social Responsibility, will help us to appreciate better what works, and what doesn’t.  I hope too we will all leave the workshop with some new ideas as to how to better meet the every increasing relevance of private resources for public good.  It is the intention of the Inter-American Development Bank and its associated Funds such as the Multilateral Investment Fund about which Mr. Daniel Shepherd will speak, to collaborate wherever possible with private sector efforts to support development.  Let me encourage you all in this important effort and wish you productive deliberations in our workshops today.

Thank you.

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