West Africa Centre welcomes Ghana CSR Policy
The Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, West Africa has welcomed the introduction of a National Corporate Social Responsibility Policy for Ghana.
The Centre believes the Policy will help harness the different level of efforts at getting the private sector committed to standards relating to the environment, people, sustainable development goals and best practices in social responsibility.
In a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency, Mr Kojo Williams, the Lead Project Manager of the Centre, said ‘for many years, we have advocated for a set of principles that should guide the discharge of social responsibility in Ghana. Since CSR is not entirely a legal, but an ethical and social obligation, it was necessary to ensure that it was not expressed in a vacuum.
‘At our recent CSR and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Conference co-chaired by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), it became very obvious that the private sector needed to harness its CSR initiatives and align them to a national framework to create equitable development and prevent the multiplicity of interventions targeted at the same beneficiaries. We realised that there was the need for a strategic CSR direction and guidance for the country now than ever.’
Mr Williams said ‘the consolidation of efforts that produced the Policy is laudable and many thanks go to the German government for providing the needed support. Though the Policy does not provide a set of direct rules or definitive strategies, it has underlining CSR principles drawn from many internationally recognised conventions, practices and standards as well as a proposed oversight structure to guide the discharge of CSR in Ghana.’
The Centre called on the private sector to ensure that their CSR interventions were aligned to international best practices, people-centred and environmentally conscious.
It also urged the government to provide attractive incentives for organisations that are socially-responsible and contributed to the overall achievement of the national development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Centre for CSR West Africa, a leading CSR advocacy organisation, has been at the forefront of promoting and creating awareness about corporate social responsibility in Ghana through stakeholder conferences, one-on-one engagements, training programmes and its signature CSR Awards scheme, the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards, has been replicated in other parts of West Africa.
The Centre’s activities and advocacy efforts are largely supported by stakeholders from the private sector, business associations, academia, civil society and the media. Notable among them are the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), JICA, UNDP, Plan International, University of Applied Management, as well as local and international media organisations.
Source: GNA