Can Corporate Philanthropy Save the World?

By: Saad Sultan Goraya, Islamabad

COVID-19 has halted the world. For good or for bad, it seems like everybody is on the same page across the globe. While there are myriad of opinions about how the post-corona world will behave, as of now, only one thing is certain, a precarious and unreliable public health sector is crippling in front of a virus even across the first world. And that’s exactly the reason of Pakistan’s collective fear, panic and hysteria. “If countries like Italy, Spain, US, UK, France are not able to contain it, what would happen to us?”  This fear is real, and it is chilling the spines of citizens across South Asia. As the tradition goes, whenever an emergency hits, governments turn towards the donors for help.  So, once again, there are philanthropists ready to fill the gap left by our governments and come to the rescue of masses.

As I write, “The second batch of the much-needed medical supplies donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation has arrived in Pakistan today as a part of their drive that would supply essentials in 10 Asian countries”. One of the top textile industrialists of Pakistan tweeted, “while ensuring the livelihood of its workers, company has earmarked 20 million to combat the COVID-19. We will provide 1,000 protective suits to medics and our team is also in discussion to procure Ventilators, PPE and COVID-19 test kits from China”. In our neighbors, TATA group has announced, “Daily workers of all Tata group companies will get salary in March and April. The dues of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises will be paid immediately”. CEO of Mahindra group said, “to help in the response to this unprecedented threat, we at the Mahindra Group will immediately begin work on how our manufacturing facilities can make ventilators. At Mahindra Holidays, we stand ready to offer our resorts as temporary care facilities”.  The trend around the world is similar: Google and other companies (not Amazon) have pledged hefty amounts to fight the virus.  This is literally “fresh breath of air” for humanity considering the value of ventilators in these precarious times and unreliable health setups.

Capitalist nature of economy in neoliberal order has left us at the mercy of poor governments and rich individuals. While it sounds bitter to put a question mark on any individual’s intention behind such voluntary act, there is also urgent need of being interrogative about this whole system that allows us to survive on whims of a few while governments largely remain incompetent. This situation also raises inquiries about the theoretical basis and social outputs of complex models like Public-Private partnerships and corporate social responsibility CSR– terms that have enabled big corporations to swiftly merge with traditional philanthropy to soften their image in collective public mindset.

 Let us examine the public-private partnership model in Pakistan. On one side, imagine the private education landscape, private health care mechanism, private banking system and now compare these structures with their public sector counterparts. There is hardly any substantial partnership going on between these parallel universes except in documents, news and reports. Even in these times of quarantine, private institutes have all the means and mechanisms to shift online but nobody knows what will be the fate of students of public schools and institutes of higher education. It may sound conservative but corporate social responsibility also has limited reach if we compare it with its intended purpose. The term Corporate Social Responsibility is explained as: “a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. By practicing corporate social responsibility, also called corporate citizenship, companies can be conscious of the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental”. In this definition by Investopedia, the word “self-regulation” is important to note. It means that dedicated teams of big corporations (closely linked with marketing teams) will decide the nature of moral responsibility and its urgency/priority in the social context rather than any central authority like a government.

In an ideal scenario, if, instead of self-regulation, every company dedicates and directs a stipulated CSR fund through a legislative intrusion to a central authority, we can envisage more workable Public-Private partnership model. Public sector custody/authority is significant in this case for three reasons, a) corporations don't have technical ability or ethical standing/responsibly to prioritize a social issue b) governments are naturally responsible for social well-being of citizens and it's their job to design the social welfare models that must be sustainable too. C) Only government bodies have relevant data and reach to inform about appropriate social interventions (only if government is capable of doing so,  but as we know, this scenario is ideal).

In reality, companies have intelligently merged CSR schemes with their marketing strategies. For instance, KFC, a MNC, runs a charity for hungry kids in Pakistan. Interestingly,  not through dedicating any margin of their own profits but collecting funds from their customers (Just like Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon has created a fund to pay his workers amid corona virus crisis and also being appreciated by media outlets). Cadbury recently decided that it will provide milk bottles to impoverished families. Pepsi last summer initiated a campaign that targeted rural areas where they provided energy-saver bulbs wrapped in Pepsi plastic pet bottle. Coke also lured consumers to collect coins in plastic bottles (only in their bottles of course) to help the needy some months ago. Surf Excel is collaborating with organizations that are working for out of school children. These campaigns are visually attractive, marketing savvy, catchy, and in many instances, become viral as well.  The impact of such campaigns is always felt by consumers but there are always questions of validity, reach and sustainability which usually go unanswered. Even in post-Corona world, companies are self-regulating and CEOs are personally deciding the nature of aid.

While we have plenty of time to contemplate these days, we must explore more about how neoliberal economic model has numbed the society as a collective for decades. How advertising has molded our opinion so intelligently that it almost goes unnoticed always.

We must think that if we come out of this alive, how we are going to prepare for the next humanitarian crisis? Are we going to leave it in the hands of a few, who become national heroes in the aftermath of such grave emergencies? Are we not going to think that why we are surrounded with such political leaders who have created a fortune for themselves from public resources but we as a nation remain so poor and helpless that only charity can help us out in such emergencies? One would ask, it is not the time to discuss such ‘petty issues’ and somewhat I agree, because right now we actually are dependent upon voluntary work, charitable initiatives, relief packages, and international aid. But once this is over, let us rethink, reset and recalibrate the strange world of super heroes around us. As one social media user rightly said, the “whole world is closed including parliaments, churches, mosques, schools, malls, parks but Wasim Akram is still selling Ariel on TV”.