Companies should prioritise education in their CSR initiatives: Shahid Khaqan

The education sector should be the main focus of the commercial organisations willing to invest in community development in Pakistan under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals.

This was stated by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi while speaking on the importance of community welfare initiatives of the corporate sector at the 16th Annual CSR Summit and Awards 2024 recently organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) at a hotel in Karachi.

He said the companies under their CSR obligations should invest to spread education, improve the quality of education and build education systems in the country.

“The companies under their CSR drives could do a lot to improve the education sector in Pakistan while keeping in mind the latest technological innovations being adopted globally including artificial intelligence,” he said.

Abbasi lamented that the capacity of the public sector organisations had been phenomenally squeezed to practise CSR due to the bad shape of the national economy and related issues like the circular debt.

He said the management and board of directors of the companies should exercise autonomy to identify the priority areas of community development under their CSR obligations.

The former PM said the government was under an obligation to provide an enabling environment with improved economic conditions to let companies grow their businesses, maximise profits, and invest more under their CSR obligations.

He was of the view that companies should practice CSR on their own as their primary responsibility instead of waiting for any directives from the government in this regard.

Speaking as the guest of honour, High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in Pakistan Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne said deserving Pakistanis had been top beneficiaries of his country’s global welfare initiative of eye cornea donation after death and this stood as a testament to exemplary friendship ties between the two nations.

He said that out of 88,000 eye cornea donated by people of Sri Lanka, some 35,000 were used to benefit Pakistani people having impaired vision showing the strong bond between the two countries.

He said that a 38,000-strong workforce was available in Sri Lanka comprising doctors, paramedical staff and volunteers to safely perform the cornea donation will of the deceased Sri Lankans.

He appreciated the unwavering support Sri Lanka received from Pakistan during its years-long deadly civil war. Speaking as the other guest of honour, Ambassador of Denmark to Pakistan Jakob Linulf shared with the audience the Danish success story of effectively tapping renewable energy sources in the country to decrease its reliance on fossil fuels for power production.

He informed the audience that Danish companies took with them the same vision of protecting the environment and fighting the issue of climate change when they went overseas to do business.

He said the Danish companies stood for protecting the health of employees and their families in the best possible manner in pursuance of their CSR principles.

The Danish ambassador said the companies from Denmark also did their best to promote the cause of women empowerment as they were equal opportunity employers no matter where they operate in the world. He urged the award-winning companies to continue with their exemplary philanthropic work in the education, health, environment, climate change, women empowerment, community uplift and poverty alleviation areas for the progress of Pakistan.

Speaker of Azad Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly Chaudhry Latif Akbar said the CSR initiatives by the corporate sector could go a long way in promoting the causes of community uplift, poverty alleviation, environmental protection and slowing down the phenomenon of climate change to serve the needy people in Azad Kashmir. He lamented that several banks despite having very profitable operations in Azad Kashmir did not do any CSR project for the welfare of impoverished Kashmiri people.

He said the CSR initiatives should address the issues of deforestation, environmental damage, and climate change that have threatened the survival and livelihoods of vulnerable communities in the hilly north of Pakistan.

MNA Nafisa Shah called for adopting a legal framework to formalise CSR initiatives in Pakistan. She assured the audience that the relevant standing committees of the new house of the National Assembly would hold formal hearings to encourage and promote CSR work in Pakistan.