Title: Corporate Social Responsibility and Civil Society in Pakistan

Speaker: Ms. Khadeeja Balkhi; is an independent Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Consultant. She is an internationally experienced business and gender journalist. Her full-time business journalism career took root in Jeddah with The Saudi Gazette. She has published over a number of articles and continues to write for Arab News, Dawn, The Herald, Women’s eNews. In her work with Corporate Responsibility consulting, Khadeeja has composed the first Pakistani company’s Sustainability Report, for Engro Chemicals. She is expert in sustainability including stakeholder engagement, gap analyses and performance-strategy development and implementation.

Venue: NGO Resource Centre
D – 114, Block 5, Clifton, Karachi – Tel 5865501-2
Friday August 24, 2007
5:30 to 7:30 pm

NGO Resource Centre in collaboration with Human Resource Development Network (HRDN) organized a Development Forum at NGORC office on August 24, 2007. There were 40 participants from various Civil Society Organizations of Karachi.

Ms. Khadeeja Balkhi; an independent Consultant on Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility gave an interactive talk on “Foundations for Building a Sustainable Organization” and Mr. Anis Danish of NGORC gave a comprehensive presentation about HRDN and its function.

The participants mainly belonging to local and national civil society organizations (CSOs) actively participated in a lively discussion on status of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Pakistan.

Ms. Balkhi explained the DMAICT -- Problem Identification and Resolution Tool to streamline operations, or approaches to routine or special problem resolution in an organization.

The DMAICT is a six-sigma tool, stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control and Transfer.

Ms. Balkhi said some organizations are doing well in CSR, despite the fact the majority of corporation have still not developed their CSR policies. She agreed with the point of view of most participants that big multinational corporations particularly oil exploration companies are not spending the mandatory amount on social uplift of their respective area of operations.

In his presentation Anis Danish described the history and functions of HRDN. He also invited participants for HRDN membership. He said that NGORC represents HRDN in Sindh.

Human Resource Development Network (HRDN) is actually a group of HRD professionals and organizations from the private and public sectors. HRDN. Operating through its secretariat in Islamabad and local chapters in various cities, the Network is governed by a democratically elected Board of Directors from amongst its members.

Ms. Tazeen Javed, Manager Development Communication, NGORC presented vote of thanks.