Global Social Responsibility Conference
Global Social Responsibility (GSR) of German businesses was held at Radisson Water Garden in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on October, 28th 2010. The conference was organized by the Bangladesh German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BGCCI) - the biggest bilateral European chamber - and supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dhaka and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. My Project Officer and I attended the conference on behalf of BIF Bangladesh.
An interesting panel discussion was held on Social Business during the conference - raising some contradicting dimensions of this kind of organizations in the business of world in general and in Bangladesh in particular. Moderated by the Editor of a national English daily newspaper, the panel was attended by the Honorable Commerce Minister Col (Retd.) Faruk Khan, Professor Dr. Mohammad Yunus, Dr. Michael Otto of Otto GmbH & Co. and Ms. Saori Dubourg – President, BASF SE Asia Pacific.
They each left the stage with their own perspective of Social Business - with Dr. Yunus promoting businesses to be designed to solve social problems. He highlighted the need for more and more innovative ideas required to solve our social problems, which he says is 80% of the work done, rest is implementation. Dr. Otto also echoed the view of innovation being key - but his model seemed to remain with the core business, with social agenda tied to it. Ms. Dubourg talked about a partnership model with the core business and social agenda being separtely operated with different modes of functionality. The Honorable Minister raised the issue of Government support for such ventures, and pointed out to the tax deductions allowed by Bangladesh Government, on companies showing CSR spending.
A pictorial description of the overall conference is attached.
GSR_Conference_Follow-up_Dhaka_Bangladesh.pdf
An interesting panel discussion was held on Social Business during the conference - raising some contradicting dimensions of this kind of organizations in the business of world in general and in Bangladesh in particular. Moderated by the Editor of a national English daily newspaper, the panel was attended by the Honorable Commerce Minister Col (Retd.) Faruk Khan, Professor Dr. Mohammad Yunus, Dr. Michael Otto of Otto GmbH & Co. and Ms. Saori Dubourg – President, BASF SE Asia Pacific.
They each left the stage with their own perspective of Social Business - with Dr. Yunus promoting businesses to be designed to solve social problems. He highlighted the need for more and more innovative ideas required to solve our social problems, which he says is 80% of the work done, rest is implementation. Dr. Otto also echoed the view of innovation being key - but his model seemed to remain with the core business, with social agenda tied to it. Ms. Dubourg talked about a partnership model with the core business and social agenda being separtely operated with different modes of functionality. The Honorable Minister raised the issue of Government support for such ventures, and pointed out to the tax deductions allowed by Bangladesh Government, on companies showing CSR spending.
A pictorial description of the overall conference is attached.
GSR_Conference_Follow-up_Dhaka_Bangladesh.pdf