Scholarly Journal of Business Administration, Vol. 2(4) pp.

68-75 August, 2012

Available online http:// www.scholarly-journals.com/SJBA
ISSN 2276-7126 2012 Scholarly-Journals




Review

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable
Development

NTUI Ponsian Proti

ST. Augustine University of Tanzania, P. O. Box 307, Mwanza, Tanzania. E-mail: ponsianproti@yahoo.com.
Tel: +255784965676.

Accepted 8 June 10, 2012

The purpose of this paper is to show the role of corporate social responsibility in the sustainable
development of the African society. The paper explains how businesses have the role of impacting
positively through their activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities and all
other members of the public sphere by encouraging community growth and development, and
voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. The study is a
review of the literature on the role of corporate social responsibility to society. Both theoretical and
empirical studies were reviewed and general role of corporate social responsibility is identified. From
these reviews and real life observations, the reviewer provides his experience on how corporate social
responsibility may solve social problems in Africa. The study therefore finds that: 1. All what is called
profit by a businessman is from the society. Business should not be a burden to a society but a friend
and participate to the social development. A socially responsible business is more profitable than the
traditional businesses as customers and investors prefer socially responsible businesses. 2. African
governments will not achieve Millennium Development Goals unless the private sector intervenes. The
continent is still poor, people have no access to education, food, health care, clean drinking water or
even basic human rights, poverty is compounded by corruption, conflicts over resources, economic
stagnation and violence. Children sleep on streets; others share water with wild animals; dirty towns,
and environmental degradation threatening lives of Africans. 3. The power of business today in the
development of society cannot be undermined. A tremendous change in a society can be seen in a short
time if Banks and financial institutions, educational institutions, communication, transport and
manufacturing companies and many others can help in the social development and involvement in
social projects. Each one in its time and resources can inject any social project for the benefit of all to
eliminate poverty, diseases and illiteracy.

Key words: corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, Society, Africa, Business, Government.


INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to show the role of corporate
social responsibility in the sustainable development of the
African society. The paper explains how businesses have
the role of impacting positively through their activities on
the environment, consumers, employees, communities
and all other members of the public sphere by
encouraging community growth and development, and
voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public
sphere, regardless of legality.
Africa is a blessed continent full of milk and honey.
Gods creation provided the continent with a plenty of
resources for the use by its people. The continent is
given unique location surrounded by mountains, oceans,
lakes, good soil and fresh air. The land has a lot of
valuable resources stored deeper for today and future
generation to use and attain a quality life as human
beings.
The continent has talented people with diversity of
skills. The skills are given by the creator to ensure
discovery and good use of gifts from him. Professors,






Doctors and all experts in all fields are there to help
others and the creator is the judge and supervisor of all
these.
Africa is a continent at which some of its countries have
failed to maintain peaceful status since their
independence though some few countries remained
peaceful to date. The few leaders have ensured that their
citizens live in the peaceful status to benefit from human
freedom. Though these citizens have seen fruits of
peace, the problems of war facing the continent and the
world today are the threats to the lives of all Africans.
The writer would like to thank all people who have
played their role to ensure that Africa is as it is today
though we need more to be done. Thanks for every ones
contributions as per his or her efforts which may be
known by God more than we know. Thank you all people
in the all governments whom you sacrificed for better
Africa. God will provide you what you deserve depending
on your efforts to help its people.
The writer also acknowledges that a lot of efforts have
been shown to ensure that the lives of Africans have
changed from poor as it was and as it is now to the
quality life and even high quality life to the few. Africa
started its efforts to achieve that before independence
and even more after independence. The three enemies
were fought namely diseases, poverty and ignorance.
Today every African can support me that we are still
fighting these three enemies.
The efforts to achieve good life for Africans can be
traced from the history. Some countries have gone
through several stages to attain development. For
example Tanzania among other African countries went
through the vision to achieve independence and Arusha
declaration. These focused to give Tanzanians good life
in their free country. More other efforts have been taken
to date to ensure that the three enemies are fought but
still much is to be done. The countrys focus now is on
the Millennium development goals (MDGs), Tanzania
Development Vision 2025 and MKUKUTA Phase I and
Phase II.
Though we can see and every good African can
appreciate the efforts of our fore leaders, the three
enemies and so many others are still killing Africans
today. Are the efforts to eliminate them failing? Are the
strategies used to fight these enemies proper? Do we
know the soldiers fighting these enemies? If the answers
are yes, then why Africa is still poor as it is today since
resources are there, people are there, skills are there?
Where are the solutions?
We can think of sustainable Africa in a way that the
governments are the only drivers to reach where we
want, the idea which may be the cause of failing Africa.
We can now see that the governments alone will not put
the continent where we want, years have passed but the
Scholarly J. Bus. Admin. 69



continent is still poor, few people enjoying life while
majority of Africans are suffering. The Famine in Somalia
and the situation in the Horn of Africa may give signs on
what is still to be done by all stakeholders of the society.
The gap between rich and poor widens day to day, the
gap between poor and rich countries widen also daily not
mentioning the gap between Africa and other continents.
The time has come for everyone to think critically and
creatively to speed development in the continent.
Individuals, groups, institutions, Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs), companies and all stake holders
together with the collaboration of government institutions
should work collectively to synergize on the available
resources to help one another and mostly the majority
poor citizens.
We have to know clearly that, in Africa today people
are hungry, sleep with no food in their stomachs, people
die on wars, children sleep on streets of our beautiful
cities and to some nearby our gates in our Bangalores.
There are people who share dirty water with wild animals,
kids not getting primary and secondary education, also
men begging on our streets, our mothers get birth on
roads on the way to hospital, dirty towns and cities in our
country and sometimes give foul smell to dwellers,
environmental degradation which threatens agricultural
activities today to majority Africans and so many others.
Those within power and are able to move Africa from
the current status will be blamed for not doing so, those
who have power to change the situation of marginalized
Africans and keep quiet will also be blamed for that. It is
now time to use our positions we are now to change the
society today for the benefit of our children and
grandsons and daughters in future. Remember that you
can be among the haves today but your children may fall
in the group of dont haves in future. If the situation will
be as it is now they will blame you instead of praying for
you. Let each one participate in the social development
and make Africa a rich and peaceful continent.
Who doesnt know the power of media today in the
society? Who is not aware that media have influence to
the society in a way that it can teach, warn and entertain
society almost across the country or continent in a
second? Who does not know that media industry can
help people materially and morally? Televisions, radio,
magazines and news papers have bigger influence to the
society if all will be concerned to the issues which may
change the society from the current situation. The
participation of media to work towards social
development will speed development in the society
because all irresponsible activities will be shown;
entrepreneurial education to the society will be a priority
and involvement in the social projects.
Business today is the powerful sector in the economy.
The power of business today in the development of


Proti 70



society cant be undermined. If all businesses today can
be socially responsible, a tremendous change in a
society can be seen in a short time. Banks and other
financial institutions, manufacturing companies, whole
sale and retail shops, educational institutions,
communication companies, transport companies and so
many others can help in the social development. Each
one in its time and resources can inject any project in the
society for benefit of all (For common good)
Here comes the idea of business or corporate social
responsibility. This is nothing more than doing right things
for the benefit of the whole society. A business man/
woman should know that, all what is called as a profit is
from the society. Business should not be a burden to a
society but should be a friend and helper or relief to the
society. A socially responsible business participates to
the social development and becomes a friend of the
same. The studies done in different countries show that,
a socially responsible business is more profitable than
the traditional businesses and customers and investors
prefer socially responsible businesses on their activities.
Businesses therefore should change from traditional
models to socially responsible businesses for by doing so
they are not only increasing their sustainability but also
doing an ethical thing. There are so many benefits
enjoyed by a socially responsible business as will be
shown thereafter.


Motivation to this study

Poor situation in Africa societies due to failure in
resources mobilization by both businesses and
governments is an incentive to the writer to come up with
this paper. In Africa today people are hungry, sleep with
no food in their stomachs, people die on wars, children
sleep on streets of our beautiful cities and to some
nearby our gates of our big houses or Bangalores.
People share dirty water with wild animals, kids not
getting primary and secondary education, also men
begging on our streets, our mothers get birth on roads on
the way to hospital, dirty towns and cities in our country
and sometimes give foul smell to dwellers, environmental
degradation which threatens agricultural activities today
to majority Africans and so many others.
The writer therefore is motivated to give knowledge on
how to be done by private or business sector to attain
sustainable development in the society by using
corporate social responsibility approach. The writer
believes that, if private sector or businesses decide to
work together with the governments, poor condition in the
African villages and towns will be a history.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: section
two gives literature review on what is known about




corporate social responsibility, section three shows
corporate social responsibility and its role and lastly the
writer conclude and give recommendations for
sustainable development to be achieved through
corporate social responsibility.


Literature Review

Definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility


According to British America Tobacco Caribbean and
Central America BATCCA (2009), if any one searches for
a definition of CSR online, we find more than two million
results. These definitions are from different locations but
they all mean doing something right for society.
According to the Wood (1991),Corporate social
responsibility (CSR), also known as corporate
responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible
business, sustainable responsible business (SRB), or
corporate social performance, is a form of corporate self-
regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR
policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating
mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure
its support to law, ethical standards, and international
norms. Consequently, business would embrace
responsibility for the impact of its activities on the
environment, consumers, employees, communities,
stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere.
Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively
promote the public interest by encouraging community
growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating
practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of
legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of
public interest into corporate decision-making, and the
honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet and Profit.
Though there are many definitions, they broadly agree
that the definition now focuses on the impact of how you
manage your core business. Some go further than others
in prescribing how far companies go beyond managing
their own impact into the terrain of acting specifically
outside of that focus to make a contribution to the
achievement of broader societal goals. It is a key
difference, when many business leaders feel that their
companies are ill equipped to pursue broader societal
goals, and activists argue that companies have no
democratic legitimacy to take such roles. That particular
debate will continue.


What we know about Corporate Social Responsibility

Different writers have clearly shown the importance of






corporate social responsibility in the society. The
following few literatures tell us the importance of doing
something good for the society to have sustainable
development. Companies involved in socially
development projects are not only benefiting the whole
society but also benefit themselves as the focus of
business today is to use CSR as a business strategy to
win customers who are now buying from socially
responsible businesses.
According to Wim et al (2005), socially responsible
investments (SRIs) combine investors financial
objectives with their concerns about social, environmental
and ethical (SEE) issues. The social responsibility of
business is to increase its profits Friedman (1970), SRB
create shareholders value by reducing non-financial risks
and create long-term growth of the companies.
Studies on Corporate social responsibility show the
importance of companies to engage themselves in
socially sensitive projects. Positive impact on responsible
policies related to environment as quoted in Wim (2005)
is shown by Darwell et al (2003),human resources
advantages justified by Becker and Huselid (1998), and
corporate governance advantages are identified by
Bauer, Gunster and Otlen (2003),Comprehensive
overview can be found in Orlitztky, Schimidt and Rynes
(2003) whereby a meta-analysis of 52 studies support
their conclusions that corporate virtue in the form of
social responsibility strategies and projects is likely to pay
off (financially). For a company to be socially responsible
it must have the following characteristics known as Vigeo
ratings (five domains or dimensions).

1. Human resources: There should be a continuous
improvement of employment conditions, skills and
employability.
2. Corporate governance: There should be a
transparency and efficiency of governance to
shareholders.
3. Society and community involvement: There should be
a contribution of companies to the community e.g. public
causes and local employment training.
4. Environment: There should be clear ways on how the
companies manage impact of its activities on
environment.
5. Clients and suppliers: There should be high quality of
management of client and supplier relations. This is
because investors are prepared to pay for a premium for
companies with good management of their relations with
shareholders, stakeholders, clients and suppliers.
Marshal (2003) in his study states that, failures of
Enron and other companies resulted to the insisting of
SRIs. This is because investors think where they are
money goes as per investment objectives. These
corporate failures opened eyes of many investors to see
Scholarly J. Bus. Admin. 71



that values and ethics are most important elements in
business.
Post Enron concerns added environmental friendliness,
favorable labor policies, avoidance of gambling, tobacco
and booze. Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley II Act,
a law that keeps closer tabs of financial management and
auditing practices. The lesson learnt after the corporate
failures show, though companies need experts in their
daily operations, values and ethics are the most
important elements in the todays business world.
Joe Gallagher of US Trust in west Windsor says
investing in socially responsible companies (SRCOs)
makes good sense because you are less likely to be
blindsided by surprises. Corporate scandals
necessitated people to invest in socially responsible
companies whereby they feel that their investments are
safe.
Mallen (2004) explains how pharmaceutical industry
taking advantage of essential drugs that people could not
afford and are making profits. The study suggests that in
such companies, it is better to make a profit by producing
products or services that are beneficial to the society.
To answer whether tobacco and alcoholic companies
can be socially responsible, the study says that the
companies can be socially responsible if they produce
less or non-harmful versions involved in R&Ds to develop
less harmful products, sell to whom e.g. not to under 18
years and employees work in good conditions, respect
environment, treat well employees and behave well
towards communities within which they operate. Also
tobacco/alcoholic industry firm is socially responsible if
they insist on responsible drinking, reduction of fats and
sugar from foods active more lifestyles. Finally
companies shall see customers as stakeholders and
have great influence to the company success.
Good intention is necessary in business operations.
Business man must seek a tradeoff between its financial
objectives and social concerns. The focus of the core
business should be guided by: good intentions, profit and
recycling especially in a manufacturing industry William
(1986)
Leeora (2003) explains that legitimacy of the company
is seen as good relationship between company and
stakeholders for long-term sustainability. This is because
stakeholders can influence firms performance as they
will see the company as part of theirs.
There are four (4) theoretical streams of CSR
management capacity or elements of CSR management
capacity. These are:
Strategic management which include: Capabilities,
ethical, technical etc. All these show Strengths and
weaknesses to ensure competitive advantages.
Social responsiveness: This indicates the capacity to
respond on the social pressure.ie stakeholders


Proti 72



management, environmental scanning and issues
management.
Public relations: This is the dialogue with stakeholders,
managing conflicts to achieve legitimacy.
Marketing: These are Goals, behavior, transaction with
stakeholders.
For the company to be socially responsible it must have
five capabilities namely: Stakeholders management,
Value attuned public relations, Stakeholders dialogue,
Ethical business behavior and Accountability.
The studies above show that corporate social
responsibility is not just important to the society but it is
beneficial to the company. Therefore the companies in
the private sector should take this as social good and at
the same time a business strategy to gain legitimacy to
the public or customers.
To ensure that corporate social responsibility bears its
fruits in the society the companies should focus on social
priorities. According to Drayton (2004), when talking
about the power of corporations always give examples of
things that were or are important to the society, the
priorities that the society gives to certain things and the
power of the business sector for example, the business
sector holds communications, radio, television, and
newspapers.
So for example, everyone has heard that about 3,000
people die mysteriously in the world but at the same time
many people dont know that every day, yesterday, today,
tomorrow for example 25,000 children below the age of
five die from hunger, from poverty, from disease so
imagine for example if the private sector the businesses
that advertise the support and fund programs decided to
say everyday how many children died on the day before
from poverty and hunger so immediately people would
say this situation cannot go on, let us end hunger and
poverty, and ending hunger and poverty in the world,
preventing children from dying cost a lot less that we can
afford today in the world. So this is an example of things
that are a priority and the possibility for the private
sectors to select the right priority and to mobilize the
worlds society to end the ailments that exists today in the
world.
Because we all know what to do to end poverty misery
to promote sustainable development mankind knows
what needs to be done, mankind today also has all the
necessary resources to do what must be done. So it is a
question of political will and priority, the resources are
there, for example today we spend $900 Billion a year on
military expenses and $300 Billion a year in agricultural
subsidies. And mankind cannot gather $50 Million more
to reach the Millennium development goals that were
established by the countries and the UN (United Nations).
And all agree that this represents a little as compared to
the resources that exists today in the society so the




private sector has great responsibility for other priorities
to be placed in all our society.


Corporate Social Responsibility and its Role in Africa

To attain the millennium development goals as
established by Worlds nations and United Nations (UN)
private sector must be involved. Africa in general will not
achieve these goals if depends on its governments which
are sluggish in development, misuse public funds, cause
wars and disputes for political reasons. The power of
private sector is more than the power of the weak African
governments we have. Imagine if in each country each
private company or institution decides to invest in just
one social project as per demands of the society, are we
going to talk about diseases, hunger, illiteracy, thirsty,
homeless, conflicts and other shameful things in Africa in
the next five years?
Think also if the eight millennium development goals
(MDGs) are spread among companies. Though this is a
voluntary thing, I tell you in African if each company
decides to be socially responsible we could not be talking
about hunger, lack of clean water, street children, wars
and conflicts as will be solved by good neighbours, poor
health services, poor or lack of education, poor
settlement, lack of entrepreneurial skills and so many
others. Focusing on the millennium development goals
below that is 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2.
Achieve universal primary education, 3. Promote gender
equality and empower women, 4. Reduce child mortality,
5. Improve maternal health, 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases, 7. Ensure environmental
sustainability and 8. Develop a global partnership for
development. What cannot be done by private sector as
a social activity? Is it possible for the governments alone
in Africa to meet all these by 2015? The answers
therefore is all NO, this then will show the importance of
CSR to ensure that Africa and the world in general are
better places to live.
Though there are the MDGs, each country has
developed a vision of its own to ensure that it has
guideline in its economic and social development up to a
year of target. Tanzania for example has a Tanzania
Development Vision 2025 which guides countrys
economic and social development efforts up to 2025.
Kenya also has a vision 2030 which targets to make
Kenya a Middle income country.
The objective of this development vision taking an
example of Tanzania is to awaken, coordinate and direct
peoples efforts, minds and national recourses towards
those core sectors that will enable Tanzanians attain their
development goals and withstand the expected intensive
economic development ahead of them. It is therefore that






this development vision is shared and supported by all
Tanzanians.
The Vision accepts the role of CSR for it to be
successful as it states that The Ministries and other
government institutions, the private sector non-
governmental organizations, civil society, co-operative
societies, villages and all other social groups must direct
themselves to contributing towards effective
implementation of the objectives of this vision
Up to now Tanzania has passed through three
development visions namely: Independence under uhuru
na kazi key word, Arusha declaration under socialism and
self-reliance key word and now Tanzania Development
Vision 2025 (TDV 2025) as a new focus of Tanzania.
The Tanzania development vision focuses on five
areas to be attained namely high quality life, peace,
tranquility and national unity, good governance, educated
or learning society, competitive economy with sustained
growth for the benefit of all people. All these cant be
attained if government alone is left to work on. Private
sector should be involved to ensure that people have
quality life, education so that people may live peaceful
and hence economic growth. The previous visions
neglected private sector and also the private sector didnt
involve itself in social development thinking that it is the
work of the government and therefore necessitated new
vision 2025. If private sector will not work together with
the public sector to do right things in the society for
development, the country will again and again introduce
visions and visions without any tangible positive effects.
According to TDV 2025, high quality livelihood should
be attained if the following are achieved: Food self-
sufficiency and food security, Universal primary
education, the eradication of illiteracy and attainment of a
level of tertiary education and training that is
commensurate with a critical mass of high quality human
resources required to effectively respond and master the
development challenges at all levels, Gender equality
and the empowerment of women in all socio-economic
and political relations and cultures. Also access to quality
primary health care for all, access to quality reproductive
health services for all individuals of appropriate ages,
reduction in infant and maternal mortality rates by three-
quarters of current levels, universal access to safe water,
life expectance comparable to the level attained by
typical middle income countries and absence of abject
poverty. These again with the government efforts alone it
will be a dream not reality to achieve. The collaboration
between government and private sector doing a social
thing will make the vision to be realistic.
The Tanzania Catholic Church Statement (2010)
supports the idea that good policies which cares society
are not only just ethics but also economical. The
economy will prosper if the whole nation participates in
Scholarly J. Bus. Admin. 73



production, use or consumption of products and services.
Tanzania is a rich country in natural resources and still
Tanzanians are poor! WHY? Change is necessary and
we are all change makers, i.e. all Tanzanians. We should
not leave this task to foreigners and donors. This applies
to whole Africa too that the continent is rich in natural
resources but still Africans are poor and also change is
necessary and we are all change makers i.e. all Africans.
Lack of accountability is the source of all these. We
must work hard and crack heads to find solutions to our
own problems by using own skills, creativity, innovations
and own resources and also use efficiently donors funds.
We have good plans, policies, procedures and means but
still doing poorly in solving our own problems but we lack
patriotism, sacrifice and accountability.
The statement cites the important priorities as
education, health, poverty, homeless kids and adults,
loans to poor, mortgage, good health condition, street
kids, disables and village primary schools-food or lunch.
A gain the government alone cant do all these and hence
it is necessary for companies to have a sense of
corporate social responsibility for social development.
The law also recognizes the importance of work and
countrys property protection by every citizen. The
Constitution of Tanzania 25(1) stipulates that it is the
work which produces material wealth in the society, it is
the source of prosperous citizens and it is a measure of
human dignity. 27(2) all people are required by law to
protect property of the country and of community, to fight
every kind of misuse and run countrys economy carefully
as people who decide on future of their country. All these
cant be done by the available governments in both
Tanzania and whole Africa. It is the private sector to work
together with the governments and sometimes to remind
the governments on their responsibilities.
In his Presidential Speech in Bunge October 2010, the
president of the united republic of Tanzania Mh.Jakaya
Kikwete noted that, the private sector is not participating
enough in the development, the private and public
partnership i.e. PPP is not enough because it is just
collaboration/partnership meaning sharing concerns.
Quality life cant fall from heaven, hard work is important.
Therefore the private sector has to participate fully in the
countrys development as well as for the whole continent.
According to Grajew (2005), the business sector is the
most powerful sector in the world at large. He states that,
51% of the worlds economy lies on business, media,
television, radio, newspaper and many more are in the
hands of private sectors. He says I dont need to tell
anyone who is listening to us about the great power of
the means of communications today, the power of
influencing people, of influencing behavior, the power of
choosing priorities in society.
The private sector also has great power on politics and


Proti 74



elections. The situations we have today in the world
namely: great disparity between the rich and the poor,
great environmental problems to the human species and
more others clearly those with so much power bear much
responsibility for the world we have today. But at the
same time there is another opportunity we have, those
with so much power, those with so much responsibilities
for making the world what it is today hold the greatest
responsibility of changing the state of things.
This is why it is so important for the private sector to be
engaged in a discussion in a self criticism of its role in
todays society and in a great discussion of responsibility
in a future of mankind. This therefore shows the
importance of private sector engaging in corporate social
responsibility to ensure that the MDGs, The development
visions of specific countries, constitutional aspects of
work and more other religious statements and good
intentions are archived for sustainable social
development.
Though engaging in socially responsible businesses
seems to be an ethical thing, it is more than that and it is
currently a business strategy. First, by showing the
advantages of social responsibility for business people
and their businesses and these advantages are built on
two pillars first, the ethical advantage, the advantage of
doing the right things because social responsibilities is
nothing more and nothing less than doing the right thing
and when you do the right things, the personal
advantages are enormous because people feel good,
they feel self value, they know they are doing the right
thing. And the second advantage for the business is
because the company depends on people and if the
company treats people well, they also treat the company
well. So it is an opportunity to have talents in your
company to have people engaged and committed to have
support from the community, support from consumers
and show all the competitive advantages of the company.
On the other hand, the risks of not having the socially
responsible management can mean rejection from
consumers, very bad image for the company and it can
mean social and environmental liabilities that can destroy
a company. For example in Tanzania, KARATU district
citizens burnt sugarcane plantation claiming that the
company has become a burden instead of relief. This is a
big loss to the company and could be avoided by just
doing an ethical thing.
Companies should focus on consumer behavior, power
and attitudes towards CSR companies otherwise they will
fail in business world today. There are many cases that
show that when the consumers decide to boycott a
company because a company uses child labour, because
it harms the environment, because it is involved in
corruption these consumers can change the companies.
For example, in Brazil there are set programs called




child friendly business programs, these are companies
that dont use child labour including throughout their
chain of production, great campaign for the consumers,
telling consumers when buying products and services,
buy them from companies that treat children well, buy
from child friendly businesses, thousands of businesses
became engaged in the child friendly business program
using the child friendly business seal because they felt a
favorable consumer reaction to these businesses. And
this is one of the reasons that has made child labour in
Brazil to go down to around 40% within the last few years
because most of the businesses begun to become
concerned with such issues. Again in Brazil, there are
now developing tools for consumers to buy from
companies which are the most socially responsible
businesses because research indicates that
approximately 80% of consumers want to favour socially
responsible businesses but only 15% of consumers are
capable. (Drayton 2004)
For a company to be socially responsible it must have a
YES to the following questions and others aiming at
helping the society as a whole: Does the company have a
policy of supporting people with disabilities? Does the
company have a code of ethics? Does a company have a
policy for its relationship with and for investing in the
community? Does the company use social responsibility
criteria in selecting suppliers? Does a company have a
code of ethics that was prepared only by the president
and hangs on the wall or was this code of ethics also
prepared with the employees and non government
parties or does this code of ethics also get an annual
review? In the community investment issue, does the
company measure the result of the investment or does it
involve partners entities from the community, whether it
has partnerships with other companies. Whether it also
involves local government with the social program, what
degree of depth this progress has reached.
For example the number of women in the managerial
positions, the distance between the largest and the
smallest salary in the company, the percentage of
community investment with regard to revenue, the
number of people with disabilities with regard to the total
number of the employees.


How to attain sustainable social development in
Africa

There should be efforts to encourage companies to
publish their social reports, encourage businesses to
publish this information on their website and their degree
of social responsibility. Companies should show these
indicators when they want to get the consumer
preference. They should also be required to show them






to the pension funds and to the investors as the condition
to receive financing and they are also required to show
them to the government when they take part in public bills
so we use a series of mechanisms that make companies
reveal their information and progress in their degree of
social responsibility, that is the strategy to use.
Like what happened in Brazil, there should be called a
meeting with some business people who had an
advanced social consciousness. There should be
established the ethical institution of business and social
responsibility in each country. The mission should be to
promote corporate social responsibility so that
businesses would have socially responsible management
and would be partners in building a society that is more
just, sustainable and more prosperous. They would be
partners in building a sustainable development, this
mission is very important because it shows what is
needed to be done by businesses and what corporate
social responsibility really is. That is not just to make
businesses socially responsible but to make them
partners in building a sustainable society.
Companies should direct their employees to any social
project that doesnt stay with the company and this social
project should be decided upon by the employees where
to invest in a community what kind of action, how the
employees can participate for example engaging
businesses in building wells, dispensaries or health
centers, schools and other social projects in rural and
urban areas.
There should be a program for companies to offer
youths the first jobs, the first working opportunities, a
great program for businesses to come back and invest in
their home countries, companies to be open to
apprentices, young apprentice who can have an income,
study and learn within companies. Businesses should
become schools for work education engaging companies
to comber slave labour in African countries, bad working
conditions and inhumane working conditions and also
solve water problems by for example banks may decide
to cooperate and focus on poor areas to do something
social.


CONCLUSIONS

Better Africa or world is possible if private sectors take
CSR as their strategy of doing business today. Suppose
each financial manager convinces the board of directors
and each company invest any single project in the
society, I assure you all we cant talk all the time about
the shameful problems facing men and women in Africa
today.
Everyone should know that we are living in times never
before lived by mankind, never before in the history of the
Scholarly J. Bus. Admin. 75



mankind have we had to face what we are facing now the
possibility of the end of the human species. And thats
without talking about the social conditions mankind faces
today, where are more than half the population lives in
poverty and now increasing instead of decreasing the
human species in the Africa and the world as a whole will
perish.
Africa should not depend too much on its weak
governments here politicians enjoy their interests, the
private should put pressure the governments to work for
society and at the same time the private sector should
lead by example doing something social.


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