Corporate Philanthropy Helps Businesses In Accelerating Economic Recovery: Crescent Enterprises CEO

SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 02nd Jun, 2021) Crescent Enterprises CEO Badr Jafar has called for the creation of a Gulf Corporate Philanthropy Network to encourage all businesses to embrace strategic corporate giving, as businesses across the world play a leadership role in the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s Jobs Reset Summit on Tuesday, Jafar, who also founded the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Cambridge, said, "Beyond the ill-effects on the pandemic, it provided many with an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the status quo in relation to the role of business in society, with a greater acceptance of the notion that business has no other choice but to be at the forefront of addressing our social and environmental challenges."

"This is not simply a moral imperative, but a commercial one, with inextricable links between long-term economic success and positive societal impact," Jafar added.

In 2020, the global workforce lost an equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs, US$3.7 trillion in wages, and 4.4 percent of global GDP. While the growth outlook is expected to improve, a fair socio-economic recovery is not guaranteed.

As founder of the Pearl Initiative, a non-profit established in 2010 to boost standards of corporate governance across the Gulf Region, Jafar also advocated for the essential role that governance plays in building resilience to future shocks, "We must not see the individual components of ESG as being mutually exclusive. They are linked. Environmental and social goals are two sides of the same coin, and I like to think of the governance dimension, the G, as the edge of that coin, which binds everything together. Governance in many ways is the most important aspect of the ESG agenda, as strong corporate governance creates the foundations upon which a business’ agenda of purpose is built."

"For too long, philanthropy has been treated like the neglected child of capitalism. It is seen by too many as a peripheral concern and even viewed in some parts of the world with suspicion. The reality is that well over a trillion Dollars of private philanthropic capital, more than triple the annual global development and humanitarian aid budgets combined, is deployed every year. We must not squander the opportunity to deploy this capital strategically, to where it is needed the most and with maximum impact," Jafar said.