CSR guideline in the offing

The government has started an initiative to introduce CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) guidelines for organisations to spend a portion of their profit on social activities under certain bindings, officials said.
They said Finance Minister AMA Muhith has directed the bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) to finalise a draft guideline urgently.
The BFID has also been asked to provide the minister with well-thought opinions in this regards within next one month.
The Cabinet Division, in June last, entrusted the minister with the responsibility to ensure effective use of CSR funds in the country, a finance division official said.
The Finance Division has already mobilised opinions from different government and private sector stakeholders through sending letters and started preparing the guideline based on the opinions, said a senior official.
He said a brief draft has already been prepared in light of the CSR policies of different countries.
According to the draft, the country's health, education, environment, security and child welfare sectors got priority as a strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The guideline is to bring the CSR spending and other related activities under certain bindings, and assess how much the companies could contribute to social welfare and the country.
As a result, the CSR process and activities would be more transparent, said a senior executive of a private commercial bank (PCB).
Experts said the CSR guideline will contribute to create positive branding of the country while corporate firms' standards will be improved that would help them expanding the global market of exportable items.
They, however, said the focus of the CSR guideline will be on good governance, climate change and environment, human rights and labour standards.
The CSR in Bangladesh was so far being practised on ad hoc basis, they said, adding that the idea is not new, but the whole notion and putting it into a framework still remains new.
The experts explained that the real concept of CSR is to align it with the companies' core business strategy and make it a part of their business.
Total amount of CSR expenditure by the banks and non­bank financial institutions (NBFIs) in the fiscal year (FY) 2014-15 was over Tk 54 billion, according to Bangladesh Bank data. NBFIs reported direct CSR expenditure of Tk 44.2 million in the FY.
Education, health, humanitarian and disaster relief contributed to 34.5 per cent, 21.8 per cent and 23.5 per cent respectively of the banks' total CSR contributions during the period.
The NBFIs concentrated more on cultural welfare (24.8 per cent), followed by humanitarian and disaster relief (22.7per cent) and other sectors (27.7 per cent).
Education, health and environment got less priority as the NBFIs spent 11.6 per cent, 7.4 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively in FY15.
The NBFIs also concentrated less on infrastructural development in underprivileged areas and income generating activities for the poor.
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