Lending an axiomatic reality its highest purpose is the decision by the UAE Ministry of Economy to make Corporate Social Responsibility an integral aspect of the private sector’s identity. Beyond the postulations on the importance of CSR by political sociologists, in today’s increasingly binary world of positives and negatives, it is an uncompromising need to have societal growth as an inclusive phenomenon. And that includes everyone — the government, people, public sector and the private sector. The greater the degree of blurring of these lines in the collective vision of social good, the better the outcome for national progress. And the UAE has time and again demonstrated its commitment to such outcomes and this latest initiative of asking the private sector to become an important, and inevitable part of the social impetus is once again deserving of applause.
In steering CSR, which has largely been a self-mandated task by the private sector, towards a mandatory status, the UAE has highlighted the fact that this is an incumbency whose time has come. Obviously, capitalist altruism has had its benefits all along. But the fact also is that it is a tilted landscape in this regard. For every private company that has consciously sought to depart from the sole aim of profit maximisation and move towards social good, there have been many companies who have been immune to CSR and it is up to any economist’s leisure to calculate what could have been the result if every private company in the world had been actively pursuing CSR.
The UAE, therefore has taken absolutely the correct step in ensuring a level playing field. By formalising the responsibility of the private sector to adhere to CSR on an annual basis, the UAE has created a continuum of CSR outcome, the benefits of which are immense for all stakeholders.
It’s not only the society that benefits but also the private sector because CSR is a powerful symbiosis — it works to immeasurably advance the reputation and credibility of a private company in the eyes of the consumer and this is a vital relationship to nurture.
What makes the UAE’s CSR initiative more impressive is that it fully backs the efforts of the private sector in offering it incentives. In doing so, the UAE government is sending a clear message that every step towards nation building is an inclusive process and there can be no better encouragement than this.
