Summit tackles business response to SA's social challenges

Summit tackles business response to SA's social challenges

Tuesday, 22 September 2009 10:43

The Kaelo Responsible Business Summit 2009 came to a close last week after two days of intense debate and dialogue that focused on the business response to finding sustainable, long-term solutions for some of the social challenges that South Africa faces.

During her opening address, Minister of Social Development Ednah Molewa emphasised the focus of the Summit saying that it allowed the further exploration of the role and contributions of the business sector towards South Africa's broad development agenda.

The minister drew attention to the fact that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives may suffer due to cost cutting measures brought on by the recession and urged businesses to see corporate social responsibility as the relationships of a company not just with its clients, suppliers and employees, but also with the needs, values and goals of the society in which it operates.

Molewa also highlighted the role public-private partnerships had to play in achieving sustainable social change in South Africa.

"Public-private partnerships encourage innovation and creative thinking while allowing us to address service delivery and fiscal challenges," saud Molewa. "There is no question that excellent synergy can be forged between the public and private sectors, recognising and drawing upon the expertise and legitimate objectives of involved parties.

"As government, we believe in strengthening public private partnerships for development, in order to ensure that we have the necessary capacity to work optimally towards the attainment of our national priorities," says Molewa.

The two day Kaelo Responsible Business Summit saw topics such as CSI during an economic downturn, responsible leadership in the business and social sectors, creative capitalism, sport as a tool for development change and best practice corporate investment in education being debated by delegates and panelists. The conference also made use of green power as renewable energy was secured for the energy consumed during the event and for the accommodation for out of town guests.

The panel discussions focused on showcasing global trends and best practices with many viable and sustainable outcomes rising out of the debates. Well known speakers from the business sector included Andre Fourie, CEO of National Business Initiative, Brian Whittaker, CEO of the Business Trust and Kgotoso Schoeman, CEO of the Kagiso Trust, renowned strategist Clem Sunter,  Riah Phiyega, Former Group Executive: Public Affairs at Absa and Serame Taukobong, Chief Marketing Officer, MTN SA.  During the two days Dion Chang updated audiences on social trends while Andy Rice gave delegates an interesting perspective on cause related marketing.

Key learnings and experiences were also shared by international speakers from the Middle East, Nigeria and Kenya.

"I believe that South Africa's development community has a lot to learn from other developing countries that face similar challenges to ours. By being exposed to these different views, innovations and approaches, delegates were able to walk away with some new solutions-oriented thinking around our development challenges." said Yogavelli Nambiar-Varma, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Kaelo Worldwide Media.

Key outcomes from some of the panel discussions included:

• There is a need to drive an office in the Presidency that focuses on social innovation enterprises and considers their agendas.
• There is a need to engage CEO's further in dialogue around social development and CSR
• Social enterprise should be integrated into the transformation agenda which should create an  enabling environment for these enterprises
• There is requirement for a think-tank on sport where the social sector would interact and engage with sports bodies
• There was a commitment from delegates to explore the viability of using the Excellence model for measurement in the private sector. This would assist in determining corporate development goals and facilitate measurement against these goals
• There is a need for a single taxonomy for social value metrics; and a rating system which would incentivize private sector measurement on their CSI
• Responsible leadership needs to be driven through leadership and employees
• There was a call for a movement of corporates to start working together and sharing learnings in CSI - while this is being done under the banner of NBI, this must continue to grow on different levels
• Regarding collaboration on education, the programme convened by Mamphela Ramphele, Bridges, is one such platform that could be utilised to facilitate this.

Further discussions and a full report on the outcomes of the Kaelo Responsible Business Summit are available on www.kaelosa.com./conference.