Initiatives within the ambit of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are aimed at advancing Bangladesh's inclusive, environmentally sustainable socio-economic progress. It is very heartening to see CSR awareness and activism steadily deepening in our business and entrepreneurial community.
We all know that the CSR obligations of activism towards promoting sustainability is not just a developed economy cause or a developing economy cause, it is a global survival urgency in the face of looming risks from social iniquity, environmental degradation, and climate change threats arising mostly from the global economic output practices and lifestyles pursued thus far. There is indeed no escape from the imperative of major global shift from polluting output practices and lifestyles towards equitable and environmentally sustainable options in the one world that we all share. This initiative will call inter alia for a major attitudinal shift towards conducting our businesses and output activities with a socially and environmentally responsible mindset.
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has recently attached an international standard to it to provide guidelines for adopting and disseminating social responsibility called 'ISO 26000 -- Social Responsibility' encouraging voluntary commitment to social responsibility with common guidance on concepts, definitions and methods of evaluation where social responsibility is the result of the collaborative effort of industry, government, international organisations, academia, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), service providers, consumer representatives and other stakeholders. The ISO 26000 and the UN Global Compact are promoting the notion for organisations to behave in a socially responsible manner, which are both a strategic voluntary policy initiative and a practical framework for entities willing to establish responsible business practices. They encourage the engagement of business activities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. The key goals are to set principles in business activities as a global norm and thus rally action and support for UN mandates, more so with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
To this end, Bangladesh Bank (BB) has been proactively pursuing the ingraining of a socially responsible financing ethos in the corporate goals and objectives of banks and financial institutions in our financial sector. Progress thus far has been very heartening. CSR initiatives of our banks and financial institutions have expanded several folds over the past few years, in direct support for socioeconomic empowerment of the less well-off population segments with extensive schemes in areas of health, education and emergency disaster relief; in inclusive financing of productive farm and off-farm macro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) initiatives of all population segments in all economic sectors; and in financing transition from polluting, energy inefficient output practices to 'green', environmentally beneficial options.
BB's facilitation and support measures like refinance lines and financial sector information technology (IT) infrastructure modernisation to enable off-branch mobile phone/smart card based financial service delivery have helped our financial sector in their CSR initiatives; but it is the motivational thrust of enforcing a socially responsible financing ethos that has played the key role in drawing all our banks and financial institutions into spontaneous engagements in CSR initiatives. For some years now, BB has been issuing annual reports on Bangladesh financial sector's CSR initiatives, to help banks and financial institutions learn from each other's initiatives.
With a view to bringing discipline in the CSR fund allocation by banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), BB is in the process of introducing a new CSR guideline. As per the new guideline, banks and NBFIs will have to spend at least 2.5 per cent of their net profits for corporate social responsibility purposes in three key fields - concessional loans, donation fund and allocation for developing internal (banks and NBFIs) job environment and gender equality. The marginal and the landless farmers of the remote areas will be able to receive the concessional loans. A bank or NBFI will have to frame its own CSR policy and its board of directors will have to approve and review it periodically. Banks and NBFIs will have to publish an annual CSR publication, illustrating their CSR activities on a regular basis.
We look forward to seeing all the business communities and associations sponsoring many more appropriately structured CSR-promoting activities to progress the ever-deeper engagements of socially responsible business ethos in Bangladesh.
The article is adapted from the presentation Dr. Atiur Rahman, governor of Bangladesh Bank, made as the special guest at the Standard Chartered Bank-Financial Express CSR award-giving ceremony on May 28, 2014.
Expanding CSR activities for a caring society
Atiur Rahman | Published: May 30, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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