Dubai: A bundle of training programmes to help organisations build a stronger Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) culture was launched by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) for the Year of Giving on Wednesday.
The programmes, sponsored by the foundation, range from CSR-related consulting to training services, and will be on offer for both public and private organisations, the MBRF announced on Wednesday
MBRF’s Qindeel Educational, a project launched in 2016 with an aim to provide educational courses, is handling the initiative with a focus on capacity building, training employees, helping companies initiate CSR departments, or evaluating their current CSR model.
Inspired by the pillars of the Year of Giving, Jamal Bin Huwaireb, managing director of MBRF, said the move aims to promote social responsibility in the UAE and transfer knowledge on the best practices in social responsibility in the country and beyond.
“A range of quality programmes are being launched to promote the concept of social responsibility among companies and institutions and provide advisory training support in this area,” he said. “We are also working on identifying best practices when it comes to social responsibility, looking back on international success stories and working to implement them in the UAE.”
Bin Huwaireb announced that as part of the initiative, a forum on social responsibility will be launched in the last quarter of the year and a specialised index will be established to track social responsibility.
Dr Khalid Wazani, strategy and knowledge adviser at MBRF, said organisations and institutions will only have to pay minimal costs for the programmes, as they are sponsored by MBRF.
“Around eight capacity building training courses are on offer by Qindeel Educational. The second part of the initiative is to help companies initiate their own CSR units, judge their own performance and help them act on what they need to do in terms of internal and external CSR.”
He added that they will also help companies evaluate their current CSR units through international expertise, and give them advice on how they can make it more effective within 2017 and onwards.
“We are trying to, with the help of certain international bodies, build a criteria for CSR, in which companies can tell whether they are meeting that criteria or are below it, and similar to the reading index established by the foundation last year, this year we will work with international bodies to establish the index that tracks social responsibility.”
Referring to the criteria being developed, Dr Wazani said that it will be based on global standards in CSR.
As part of the forum to be organised, he added, Qindeel Educational will have an international judging organisation come in to recognise certain public and private organisations who made a difference in 2017.
