A multi-stakeholder approach would be needed to accelerate the implementation of SDGs and corporate social responsibility initiatives in Namibia.
The private and public sectors, however, need to collaborate their corporate social responsibility initiatives to have a greater impact.
Namport’s Executive for Governance, Risk and Legal Service Raymond Visagie made a statement at the NICG conference that caught my attention. He said “corporate social investment (CSI) in Namibia is reactive”.
I agree with him to some degree. What is apparent is that there is no concerted effort to combine CSI efforts amongst institutions in the country, making it difficult to make a long-lasting impact.
The lack of a multi-stakeholder approach to CSI in Namibia needs to be addressed. One of the delegates proposed for a CSI national committee to be formulated, where all private and public sector representatives can manage their CSI initiatives.
The committee would, at a macro level, critically assess the various development plans and the SDGs and allocate a goal to a specific industry. For example, the mining sector in Namibia could support CSI initiatives that tackle infrastructure issues in the education sector. The infrastructure issues can for example be, to construct ablution facilities and hostels for schools in rural areas.
The banking sector can focus on primary healthcare such as building well-equipped mobile clinics to alleviate the pressure from the major hospitals like Katutura Hospital. The committee would monitor the progress and set measurable objects that can be tracked and measured.
So how can CSI initiatives be effectively measured?
Since the UN adopted the Millennium Declaration, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in September 2000, there has been an acceleration of poverty reduction, disease control and increased access to schooling and infrastructure, especially in Africa. The MDGs assisted in mobilising resources from world leaders to directly fight social ills like poverty.
When all the governments agreed to adopt the MDGs in 2000, they had to prove that they had plans and activities to achieve the goals. Namibia integrated the MDGs in both the Vision 2030 and NDP3. Namibia diligently reported on the progress and achievements it made in actualising the MDGs goals in its 2008, 2010 and 2015 reports, which can be found online.
Namibia, like other world leaders, were put under immense pressure to report on the progress/and or failure of projects, when they attended summits, or the UN General Assembly. Many countries applied a multi-stakeholder approach to tackle the goals.
“The fight against Malaria, for example, has helped to organise the world’s malariologists to fight malaria”. By virtue of having that MDG, that community of experts dedicated their time to put measures in place to deal with the disease, says Pedro Pereira Leite, in his paper titled: “The proposal for sustainable development goals”.
Namibian teachers, for example, need to collaborate with teachers in Estonia, to assist with education challenges in primary and secondary school. Hence the multi-stakeholder approach with other countries is crucial. However, it is important for these stakeholder networks/committees to have defined goals and smart objectives with clear monitoring and measuring targets.
President John F Kennedy said “by defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it. That’s the essence of the importance of goal setting; helping people to see the goals. And by making them more manageable and less remote. By spelling out how they can be achieved, people can be led to move towards it.”
According to Pedro, MDGs’ biggest accomplishments have been in public health. Three out of the eight MDGs were related to health issues. They included reducing child mortality, maternal mortality, and the control of the epidemic and communicable diseases.
These goals were achieved, because the goals were clearly defined, and the targets were quantifiable. For example, one of the goals was to reduce under five mortalities by two thirds. Those goals could be measured, counted, assessed and the outcomes could be compared.
Guy Joubert, at the NICG conference, said, “CSI should be the way we do business”. As I conclude, I want to leave you with these questions; what informs your CSI focus areas? How do your CSI’s initiatives align to the SDGs and other developmental plans of the country? How do you monitor and measure long-lasting impact? How do your CSI initiatives align to your corporate strategy?
*Morna Ikosa is a Senior Corporate Communications and Brand Reputation Strategist, CPRP, MA, AKA Fixer. To connect, send her a shout-out at micommunicationscc@gmail.com or find her on LinkedIn.
