BRICS!

CCI#&#IICA#Roundtable:#Effective#
CSR$and$Fast$Forward"
The Round Table conference on Effective CSR and Fast Forward conducted
by the Centre of Excellence in CSR and Sustainability, BRICS-CCI in partnership
with the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) saw a host of luminaries from
the Government and Civil Society besides corporate leaders, social sector
practitioners, heads of NGOs, IAS officers, journalists and other members of the
social impact ecosystem come together to discuss and debate one year of CSR
in implementation and the way forward.

I.#Highlights#from#the#inaugural#and#keynote#speeches#
The Roundtable began with an inauguration by the Honourable I&B Minister,
Shri. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and lighting of the lamp by Shri Jayanth
Sinha, Minister of State for Finance.

Keynote#Speech#by#Shri#Rajyavardhan#Singh#Rathore#
The Minister spoke about CSR as something that touches the lives of those who
really need it.
In a country like ours, or any country, certain segments of the society need
patronage and this support has always come from people whove been doing
well. Historically, the kings, the rulers of state, always promoted a certain
segment of people and reached out to those that they ruled over. Changed times
do not take away that a large number of us still remain marginalized. Thats the
place where people like you, come in and play that active role of being the
bridges between those who are under privileged, marginalized and those that are
in a way benefitting from the environment.
He stated that every human being has a certain DNA, a certain trait, and a
quality and that there are a large number of people who live for others - that is
the essence of people who are involved with corporate social responsibility and
deliverance of it.
He also stressed on the intent, the integrity, the accountability of those who are
involved with CSR as being extremely critical. The more we are able to
promote transparency and integrity, the more we are able to open up how
CSR is being spent- this actually promotes the furtherance of more
companies being associated with CSR. CSR was meant to serve as gap
funding in Government projects, yet instead of bridging the gap, the money is
being used by the government as substitute funding and this has to change,
said the Minister. Generation of funds is a very critical part of the government.
And one of the funds that it can look at happens to be CSR. It is natural and
needed for corporates to step up for this cause. Anyone who draws out of a
particular constituency must put back into the constituency - a farmer does it
to his soil, so why would a corporate not do it to its people?

Jayant#Sinha:#The#Role#Of#Business#in#India#today#
The Honourable Minister of State for Finance, Shri Jayanth Sinha delved into the
unique role of business in India today.
The very interesting issue that CSR raises is the nature of business in society.
There is lots of discussion about different flavours of capitalism, market
economies, where the roles of Government, Civil Societies, NGOs and business

amount to varying degrees. As market economies evolve in India, this

discussion, through CSR, of the role of business in society will have a significant
and profound influence over how market economies work in this country.
The Minister contrasted various theories on the role of business, going from
Milton Friedmans statement that the role of business is business they will
succeed, pay their taxes and provide employment to discussions on business
being a force for good. We are operating in a developing and poor country,
we have to think of business in a more expansive way. CSR is a very
progressive piece of legislation. It forces businesses to think carefully
about their role in society.
The Minister stressed on CSR going beyond cheque book philanthropy:

Businesses can provide NGOs with world-class professional talent

The problem is not one of capital it is more about about being ready for
the capital. The NGO needs to be ready to absorb the funds, utilize it and
deliver outcomes effectively. Corporates can strengthen NGOs ability to
scale and deliver the outcomes.
Businesses will have to commit to the success of their NGO partners.

As companies think about value chains and the ecosystems that they operate in,
there are many important roles NGOs can play, that can extend from land
acquisition to environmental remediation to healthcare for the community, skill
development etc, mentioned the Minister. This notion of shared value is critical
for companies to internalize in the ecosystems that they operate in. While
companies think of the broader role they play in society, they need wholesome
support from NGOs in a lot of the initiatives they will be involved in.
His address to non-profits was: As the non-profit sector, as you engage with
how businesses look at shared value they way they look at their supply chains,
they business practices and their ecosystems, you will begin to engage
holistically with business in India.You will start to change the manner in which
businesses operate in India. You will start to change the way market economies
work. There will emerge hopefully a very unique model of partnership between
business and civil society that is worth emulating by many others in the world.
Therein lies the bigger opportunity in CSR in fronts of us how can we forge
impactful partnerships. Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.

The#Spirit#of#the#CSR#Law:#Dr.#Bhaskar#Chatterjee#
Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, DG and CEO of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs
explained the rationale behind the setup of the CSR law and what made it so
unique from any other piece of legislation in India and outside. The law has the
following unique aspects:
How are you spending your money are you putting money where your
mouth is?
It looks to bring partnerships between Corporate India and Civil Society
India, first of its kind in the world in a regulatory framework
All CSR is to be conducted only in project mode. Any one-off events,
pure philanthropy etc are completely out of the purview of the law.
Projects have start and end dates, have resources committed to it, are
evaluated and assessed regularly to see if the projects delivered their
desired outcomes.
The role of the Government is to create the law and then create an enabling
environment for it. The Government has given the CSR boards in companies
the complete freedom to do whatever the boards deem fit. But the idea is to
bring attention from the backroom to the boardroom, stated the DG and
CEO. The CSR committee needs to authorize every single CSR activity that
the company undertakes the 3 members of the board become individually
responsible for what the company is doing, so there is accountability.
Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee clearly enunciated what the CSR law needed to
become successful:
Professionalization of CSR through qualified professional cadre of
CSR experts.
Credible NGOs to partner with. The IICA has launched a new platform
called the BSE Samman which does the due diligence for the NGOs
and lists out authentic projects.

Kailash#Sathyarthi,#winner#of#the#Nobel#Peace#Prize#for#2015#
!

No Government across the world can claim to

have achieved development of its people without
the aid of civil society or the private sector. It is
hence critical in India, for alliances to develop
between Government, Civil Society and

Corporates - relationships built on mutual trust, respect and ways of learning

from each other.
The world has moved from charity to philanthropy to CSR to Corporate
Social Accountability, to what I see as the future Corporates with
Compassionate Intelligence.

II.#Effective#CSR:#Recommendations#and#insights#from#the#
panel#discussions#
Devising#effective#programs#
Bring together your core competencies to serve the community
Joy Deshmukh Ranadive, global head of CSR at TCS, spoke about the core
of the TATA group CSR as being the community: The community is the very
existence of our being. We are here because of the community.

Ms. Ranadive spoke about adult literacy programs powered by software written
at TCS to read, write, do arithmetic, where teaching is standardized. The
software today is translated in 9 Indian languages, African, Arabic and more and
cuts time to learn from 200 hours to 50 hours. TCS training has today reached
over 2 lakh people through NGOs, even to jails authorities, over 2 lakh people
touched through this.
TCS learnings with execution of CSR programs has been the following:
Have a 3-way mapping of any program
o Make sure it falls within Schedule VII
o It makes sense to who you are as a corporate and to the
implementation agency. There should be an intelligent win-win
mapping based on dialogue with the IA.
o Impact is the community impacted positively? What are the
metrics, and what beyond numbers are you going to measure on
how life has changed for the community?

Hire professionals to run CSR

With the new Act and the whole aspect of regulation and monitoring and close
internal scrutiny, there is ample scope for companies to hire professionals with
experience in the development sector, on-ground experience and the requisite
skills to design and implement CSR programs, stated all experts.
For good strategies to convert to execution on the ground, you need good
professionals good social sector professionals, not what the world loosely
refers to as social work people, you need technical expertise. Right from
putting together due diligence mechanisms for partner on-boarding, there is a
lot of scope for technical expertise, said Ms. Ranadive from TCS.

Going#beyond#chequeRbook#philanthropy#
We need enforcement mechanisms
Most experts alluded to the necessity if not now, but later, in being able to
enforce CSR on the ground. Referring to cases where companies found
accounting mechanisms to show trips, exchange programs, sponsorship of TV
shows, marathons, etc as part of CSR spending, the need for strong
enforcement was expressed across the board.

An alternative view expressed was that enforcement might shackle the

corporates from innovating:
The most important is that it connects the corporate world to civil society and
therein is the essence of the law. Lets put language first and grammar later.
Else we will not give it a chance to survive, stated MC Gupta, Senior IAS Officer
Corporates bring skills that can help achieve social impact results
CSR is not about filling the gaps in the Government budget, but involving
corporates with their skills, background, expertise, trained personnel and other
resources, to forge partnerships to achieve a different set of results.
Corporates can teach us many things how to setup systems, metrics and
measurement techniques, good reporting, team building, organization building.
If you give us money on top of all this, it is fine, but even if you dont it is ok,
said Rahul Dev.
CSR funds can act as effective catalysts
CSR funds are not much as compared to government funds, which is the
taxpayers money, but it can work very well as a catalyst if used to fill the correct
gap, agreed all experts. As CSR funds constitute a mere 3% of the
Governments social spending, the intent is more to bring in impactful
partnerships than to provide an additional funding umbrella.
Need to bridge the distrust between corporates and NGOs
Most panelists brought up the inherent distrust that existed between corporates
and NGOs as a key deterrent to effective partnerships in CSR and shared value.
Transparency, better reporting and communication, platforms like BSE Samman
that do the due diligence of NGO projects etc can go a long way in ensuring that
corporates are focusing more on the programs than in achieving due diligence
or compatibility checks in CSR.
CSR heads need to think about an exit strategy
CSR cannot be a substitute for the normal functioning of the Government and
for initiatives to be sustainable in the long-term, there always needs to be
planning of an exit strategy, right from the beginning.
Ravi Dhingra, one of the panelists, explained the case of a healthcare project
where the corporate invested over 5 crores in conducting mobile health camps

in remote villages of HP involving a team leader, doctor, pharmacist, driver who

also maintained records and covered over a lakh in just 2 years. What happens
after 5 years? Societies, NGOs, SHGs, have to come forward and take over the
responsibility of the areas, he said.

III.#CSR#in#Healthcare:#Focused#discussion#
The healthcare panel witnessed discussions about the critical areas of health
sector in terms of diseases and regions of the country and the past experience
of the companies in terms of the health initiatives like Blood Donations camps,
Mobile Health Clinics, providing clean and safe drinking water to their
communities etc. The major challenges before the companies is to plan their
future CSR initiatives in health care and sanitation keeping amended schedule
VII in mind so that they would be able to create value for their key stakeholders.
There are opportunities for civil society engagement and activism in the delivery
mechanism of CSR initiatives of the companies in aligned with the amended
schedule VII activities in the health care sector. This panel discussion took the
views of key stakeholders such as policy makers, practitioners, academicians,
think tanks as well as NGOs who had the firsthand experience in the way of
CSR implementation in the health sector.

Moderator Suresh Reddy lay the context for healthcare CSR referring to the
fact that 32% of the CSR spend in 2014 had gone to health and WASH. Out of
250 companies, 25% spent directly on their own (and not through NGOs). The
money has mainly gone to West and South, while other geographies are being
challenged.
Lalith Kumar, Honorary Senior Vice President, Sulabh International Social
Service Organization spoke about 50 diseases being prevalent in India due to
lack of sanitation and hygiene. Sulabh has created 1.3 million toilets in various
parts of the country, besides providing clean drinking water and has recently
won the Safaigiri award for cleaning Assi Ghat in Varanasi. Lalith Kumar
stressed on the need for more partnerships to focus on sanitation.
Mohini Daljeet Singh, Head, Max India Foundation stated that health
awareness and screening is the need of the hour. Max India Foundation does
health awareness, screening, tertiary care through surgery and treatment and
are working on health and sanitation etc. All of these issues are connected, she
said, and although they have reached out to 15 lakh people, she said that
numbers dont matter much. When someone has been able to avail of cardiac
surgery or has been cured of cancer, it is a benefit to the entire family, and that
is how they are looking at the impact of their healthcare work.
In terms of recommendations, Ms. Singh had the following observations:
Start with what you are going to work on, not who you are going to work
with. We chose healthcare because it is our core competency. Starting
with your own geography and go outside.
Choose the right partners who can track communities for you. In our
immunization program, perhaps the first corporate doing it directly on the
ground at such a large scale, we have SOPs in place, a number of NGO
partners in place. We are setting up huge bio-digestors/STPs/sewerage
systems in the villages, as we want to focus on sustained health.
Think about co-payment by the community or Government right away.
With money coming into the villages, people start wondering whats in it
for them we have to assure the people, else agenda is diverted.

Dr. Vishal Jadojia, Group Chairman, Swati Spentose (P) Ltd. spoke about the
need for new models in healthcare There are more than 7000 rare diseases that

go unnoticed, and CSR can support these diseases. Diseases like dwarfism,
painful bladder syndrome etc are worth looking into, he recommended.
Dr. Sanjiv Kumar, Executive Director, National Health System Resource
Center spoke about open defecation as a critical problem to be tackled by CSR
47% of the people, 600 million people go in for OD. There is huge burden and
disease creation through bad sanitation. We know that there are 3 issues: no
toilets, non-functional toilets and available toilets are not being used. More than
half of the people dying in India are dying of NCDs we need to start looking at
lifestyle. We are adding more unhealthy years to the life of people. 12% are
dying of accidents and injuries. Trauma care is an area in CSR we need a lot
more work to be done here.