Private sector plans social responsibility fund

KAMPALA.

Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU) is in advanced stages of setting up a corporate social responsibility fund, the chairman has said.

Mr Patrick Bitature, while speaking at a Yunus Social business graduation ceremony recently, revealed that the fund is meant to give back to the communities in which they operate.

The fund, he said, will support social businesses which are engaging in development work. He hailed social entrepreneurship as the only way to promote sustainable development. “Social entrepreneurs act as change agents for society. They seize opportunities others miss and improve systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better,” he said.

Adding that, social entrepreneurs come up with new solutions to social problems and then implement them on a large scale.
PSFU executive director Gideon Badagawa said the fund is expected to be operational by March this year.

He said it is more important for firms to be organised when offering corporate social responsibility to communities. The private sector has companies which operate in sectors of oil, cement and breweries, among others, and have an impact on the communities.

Therefore, Mr Badagawa said: “It must be an obligation for us to resuscitate the environment and also support the communities we operate in to ensure sustainable development.”

He said the idea of the trust fund is to create jobs for the youth, but beyond this they want to ensure that they do social business in order to sustain businesses.

He faulted businesses for only focusing on making profits without investing in the people they employ and the communities. He said the challenge is therefore on them to clean up by encouraging different companies to pool resources and support the growth of the fund.

Mr David Sempala, the chief executive officer Royalway Media and director of CSR Africa said: “There is a growing shift in focus from shareholder value (maximising profit) to stakeholder value, where companies are striving at balancing people, planet and profit.

“The new tendency is a consequence of the fact that progressively more power lie with stakeholders, who demand transparency in organizational communication and expect companies to acknowledge their impact on their surroundings. These expectations create pressure on companies to act responsibly with regards to their external as well as internal environments.”

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