Video: Pavlenko Oleksandra on Public Private Partnerships in the Ukraine

Pavlenko Oleksandra is Partner for the law group Pavlenko & Poberezhnyk and private counsel of the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she talks about her work in public-private partnerships in the Ukraine. The interview took place on 28 April 2010 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Video: Volodymyr Vorobey on CSR in Countries in Transition

Volodymyr Vorobey is Partner of Community CSR Ukraine. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he talks about CSR in Countries in Transition, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. The interview took place in Kiev, Ukraine, on 27 April 2010.

Video: Victor Liakh on CSR in Eastern Europe & Ukraine

Victor Liakh is Executive Director of East Europe Foundation, based in the Ukraine. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he talks about the findings of their research on CSR in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The interview took place in Kiev, Ukraine, on 27 April 2010.

Video: Sten Anders Berge on CSR in Norway

Sten Anders Berge is Deputy Director General of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he discusses Norway's new White Paper on CSR. The interview was conducted on 27 April 2010 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Reflections on CSR in India

By Wayne Visser

I spent 10 days in India in April, hosted by my friend and CSR scholar Bimal Arora. It was a jam-packed itinerary, with workshops, lectures and talks in Mumbai, Raipur, Delhi and Pune. Apart from infernal temperatures (30 degrees Celcius at night and many days over 40), it was wonderful to soak up the sights (mainly traffic) and sounds (mainly hooters) as we travelled around. I left with a number of impressions on CSR.

First, as expected, CSR is still largely philanthropic, building on long and proud traditions from family empires like the Tatas and concepts like Gandhi's trusteeship. But we see government playing a very active (and in my view sometimes misguided) role. Not only do they guarantee 100 days of work each year for each of India's 60 million rural households, which is incredible, but they also require all public companies to set aside 2% of net profits for CSR programmes.

Now there is a proposal to extend this "mandatory CSR" to private companies as well. This is essentially just an added tax and should not be called CSR. In my view, governments should focus on effective regulation of the issues that CSR is trying to address (biodiversity loss, labour conditions, climate change, transparency, etc.) rather than regulating CSR activities per se. Regulating CSR directly simply creates bureaucracy, stifles innovation and invites corruption.

A more positive trend are the social enterprises that are bubbling up. Among the most inspiring is Arurag Gupta, the Founder of A Little World, which provides hi-tech innovations for the rural poor in India, including micro-banking, lighting, media and sanitation. I had the chance to interview him and he explains how biometrics and LED technology is being used to serve the poor. (Here is a link to the interview).

Aligned to social enterprise is the power of social activism should not be underestimated. I came across a great example in the form of Karmayog.org, which has created an online platform which allows citizens to publicly report (and presumably embarrass) any instances of corruption, such as an official asking them for a bribe. It is also used to pool NGO resources during times of crisis, such as flooding, and to share CSR Ratings that they have conducted on Indian companies. (See an interview I conducted with the founder).

The other positive sign from India is "inclusive business", where the bigger companies like Tata are designing products and services to cater for poor customers at the 'Bottom of the Pyramid' (which in India is just called "the market"). The Tata Nano - a small eco-efficient car for $2,500 - is a case in point. What is even more encouraging is that these products are not being accepted without question. In one of my workshops, we had a raging debate about whether it is a good thing to have every Indian driving a car, Nano or not.

India is certainly a space to watch on CSR and its progress is far from being a foregone conclusion. Whereas there is a sense of order and control in China's great transition, India is far more chaotic and unmanaged (or unmanageable?). It is almost as if there is a Grand Experiment in CSR - democratic, messy, ad-hoc Indian style or controlled, managed, sanctioned Chinese style. Which will prevail is a question for future historians. I think it's too soon to place bets on either.

Video: Rostyslav Kurinko on CSR in Central & Eastern Europe

Rostyslav Kurinko is the Founder of CSR Journal, based in Kiev, Ukraine. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he talks about CSR in Central and Eastern Europe, which is the region that his CSR Journal covers. The interview took place in Kiev, Ukraine, on 28 April 2010.

Video: Tan Lin Lah on the UN Global Compact in Malaysia

Dr Tan Lin Lah is Executive Director of the UN Global Compact in Malaysia. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she shares her views on the progress Malaysian companies are making on CSR. The interview took place on 24 March 2010.