Civil society seems to view CSR within four areas of responsibility: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. The first two are obligatory areas for corporations to be compliant with, while ethical responsibility is expected of them. The last responsibility — philanthropic — is desired of corporations by civil society. In her paper Corporate Social Responsibility Across the Middle East and North Africa, Melsa Ararat, director of the corporate governance forum of Turkey, noted that, “society’s predominant expectation from business in the MENA region is to create employment.” She continued by asserting that, “Manifestations of economic responsibility such as fair play, disclosure and transparency and prudent governance are generally ignored by society.”
In the Levant, however, the maestros of civil society agree — hands down — that, as noted by Dr. Dima Jamali, associate professor of management at AUB, “the philanthropic variant of CSR is still the most commonly encountered, but needs to be complemented by equal attention to economic, legal, and ethical strands.” There is much to be done for CSR in the Middle East, and the public sector has a lot to say about it.
Inhibiting forces
Civil society sings a unanimous tune when talking about the difficulties of CSR in the Levant. Comprised of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan, the Levant is not exactly known for its political stability. Experts across the civil society believe that without a stable political life, CSR cannot properly flourish — or truly exist, for that matter — in any country. Another commonly noted factor is economic weakness; the Levant is a portion of the MENA region — especially compared to the wealthy GCC – that faces severe economic issues and is habitually characterized as a poverty stricken region. Also, the size of the Lebanese economy is very small, so — notes Gebara — “marginal profits in Lebanon are small and have competition inside the Lebanese economy.” Finding it hard to compete inside with such a “highly uncooperative economy” makes external economic competition almost impossible. Everyone is well aware that the Lebanese economy is billions of dollars in debt, and thus CSR will continuously face challenges from within.
Gebara not so surprisingly reveals that the “difficulty with CSR in Lebanon per se, is the impossibility of distinguishing CSR money from political money.” This is clearly a major problem, as with such political interference the development of CSR in the Levant will be permanently hindered. This issue is similar within Syria, as the majority of companies operating there are state-run.
Without political stability, proper legislation, accountability, sufficient business protocols, conventional education systems and corporate morality, the economic situation of this region will continuously face developmental hurdles and thus inhibit the maturation of CSR.
Less tangible obstacles faced by CSR in the Levant must be also mentioned. Maali Qasem, founder of Schema, an organization providing advisory practices on corporate governance and CSR, explained that, “the core issue that we are faced with repeatedly is the mindset. For example, if one does not believe that by being good to your employees would encourage the employees to perform better, then maybe talking about CSR is actually futile; or if a company that sells a product doesn’t believe that being engaged with its target audience is beneficial for business than it would be very difficult to theoretically explain the value of CSR.” Gebara seconded this idea, as seeing that since monopolies are legal in Lebanon, “companies don’t see that they have to do a lot to make their image clean.” Such issues are similar in Syria and Palestine as well. What’s worse, expounded Qasem, is that “without that degree of awareness, it [is] difficult for CSR to advance and become a more widespread exercise.”
Qasem went on to highlight two other principle issues faced in the Levant. Believing they are intertwined, finances and incentives — or lack thereof — are significantly creating a negative impact on CSR growth. Because the Levant countries “don’t always have a large budget to invest in undertaking CSR initiatives — although CSR should not require such a substantial budget but is often perceived to — and without a financial or otherwise incentive, companies see little or no value to undertake CSR initiatives.”
Role of governments
The civil society shares similar views as to what role, if any, the state plays in CSR throughout the Levant. Gebara believes that CSR represents the failures of local governments to provide the best services to the public, emphasizing that CSR “is another indicator that the state [has] failed.” A fearless opinion such as this can make sense, but it is imperative to note that CSR originally came about once companies were being held accountable for their invasive actions on their surrounding communities, and not necessarily — or strictly — born out of the state’s defeat.
Heading LTA, Gebara finds that the Lebanese government’s role in CSR has quite an unscrupulous character, as “every politician has his own business and/or NGO, so each NGO is getting paid by business organizations which are all linked to the same people.”
Safa also finds that the Lebanese government is a special case on its own. He believes that as institutions, governments are “not an example of encouraging CSR — beyond relief and humanitarian efforts. There are especially no efforts to really encourage CSR or develop a certain framework for channeling CSR money.” Jamali agrees that governments in the Levant do not encourage CSR. Like her public sector colleagues, Qasem personally has “not yet come across a government (with the exception of Oman) that is very supportive towards CSR or sustainable development.” Also, Qasem noted, “it would be great to see more governments support and/or encourage corporations to be more responsible and make that path to responsibility more feasible and accessible.” Adding that governments ought to encourage and promote CSR through soft regulation and incentives, Jamali noted that, “governments can deploy a variety of awards, funding schemes, and fiscal incentives — for example tax incentives — to promote CSR while also taking an unequivocal positive public stance recognizing and appreciating CSR.”
Safa candidly expressed that there are truly “no incentives [made by the government] for CSR.” Elias Aoun, general manager and project coordinator at Lebanon’s Center for Development and Planning (CDP), echoed the same concerns from the taxation perspective, finding that “tax incentives are the norm in Western countries, while it is not the case in our region.” If governments in the Levant were to permit CSR initiatives to be tax-deductible, local companies’ attitudes towards their involvement with larger and longer-lasting CSR initiatives would surely be altered in a positive manner.
Giving an example of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War, Safa boldly stated that “[Lebanon] had government after government who fought civil society, who restricted the action of civil society, who cornered civil society, who refused to register NGOs, who tried to un-register some already established NGOs. So this not only didn’t encourage CSR, but it also tried to stifle the receivers of CSR.” On the bright side, Safa has more faith in the current Lebanese government, because he sees them as “different, [as] it’s open to NGOs and the non-profit sector in general,” and as overall it has done significantly more than its predecessors in terms of CSR achievements.
Allocation of funds
As is commonly known, most NGOs, civil society organizations (CSOs), and non-profit organizations (NPOs) receive their funds directly from the private sector. The Levant though, with all its twists and turns, is an exceptional case, with a significant portion of funds also being received from international organizations. Most of the public sector approaches the private sector by presenting them with their initiatives or areas for which they require funding. Thus they either end up partnering with the private corporations they approach, or merely utilize their funds and get on with their own initiatives. However, all of the experts interviewed by Executive seem to believe that money could definitely be better allocated towards longer-term CSR initiatives, and especially towards ones that truly reflect the nature of what being socially responsible stands for.
Role of international organizations
Opinions from the public sector regarding the role international organizations should play tend to vary. Aoun, for example, audaciously noted that international organizations do “nothing substantial” in terms of CSR. Safa, however, explained that global entities could play several roles, one of them being “to create models of CSR,” so companies and CSOs of the Levant could learn from their success stories and somehow try to create their own modules out of them.
Jamali finds that international organizations are an important ingredient in CSR, as they “are engaged in a parallel effort to promote CSR through the promulgation of so called international accountability standards.” The professor cites the examples of Global Impact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as drivers of CSR. According to her, if national organizations collaborated with international actors, the impact of CSR would definitely be “scale[d] up” and would thus create a “systemic approach.”
Overall, even if their impact on CSR progression is not direct, global entities do make a difference. Acting as a quasi third party, international bodies — if sufficiently organized — will aid the implementation of CSR in the Middle East.
Future desires
CSOs are adamant that companies in the region need to be more responsible, without being told to do so. Qasem, specifically, would like to see companies “be more strategic in their CSR investment, as well as governments being much more supportive towards the concept and the implementation of CSR rather than the philosophy behind it.” Citizens, as well, she says, should get more engaged in configuring the way businesses operate. Aligned with Qasem, Aoun feels that “corporations can pool their funds for bigger initiatives” in order to enhance the development of CSR. Also, he would like for the concept of CSR to be better promoted and for “more regulations from authorities to promote CSR” in the region to take place. Gebara hopes for better organizational skills within NGOs themselves, while Safa also sees the need for “more professionalism on the receivers’ side”. Ideally, says Safa, if “key donors and key receivers” could develop a “code of conduct,” CSR would be able to mature much better. Like her fellow associates, Jamali wants CSR to thrive in this region. She feels that since the Levant “has a long tradition of indigenous philanthropic cultural values and enlightened entrepreneurship,” we should “leverage [this] successfully in pursuit of more systemic and effective CSR.”
In brief, throughout civil society there are similar frustrations, concerns, aspirations, and criticisms of how CSR is taking shape in the Levant. What shape it will actually take is up to them, as well as their partners in the corporate world.
