BANGALORE: Non-government organisations engaged in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) in South Asia launched South Asia Network for Sustainability and Responsibility’s Official Logo (SANSAR) in Bangalore on Thursday.
A meeting was convened by Prakruthi, an international NGO for the purpose. This was the first of its kind network where NGOs from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and India came together.
The main objective of the SANSAR is to make stakeholders and business honchos to redefine and understand CSR and promote it actively to address social, environmental and business-related issues across value chains like coffee, tea and sugarcane.
"We have been successful in linking the CSR agendas of various companies to address poverty issues and sustainable development in trying to achieve our stated mission. This time we have taken sugarcane in which India is doing good. The strategy, economy, labour practice and welfare scheme to farmers all of this will be shared among fellow countries,” opined Executive Director of Prakruthi Promod John.
Addressing the delegates, CEO of CSR Centre, Bangladesh, Shahamin S Zaman, said “Any country’s progress depend on its growing economy, but at the same time the business should have an ethical value system, that’s where CSR comes into play. This is something on the PPP module, and economic tie up is very important between countries.”
“The paranoia in the world has put Pakistan in bad light, but the idea of exchanging economic policy will ease tension and benefit both the nations and strengthen the ties”, said Head of Research for Business Recorder, Karachi, Ali Khizar Aslam.