Global Business Coalition

“HIV aids” is a threat to the world. The extent of the possible damage to humanity, up to now cannot be measured. Whilst the cure for the disease has not been found, medicine to control the affliction on the patients exists. Prevention of the spread of the disease requires enormous amount of resources which the under developed and developing countries’ governments cannot afford to bear the costs of and do not have the know-how and will to cope with. The Global Business Coalition has been instituted by Businesses to fight the “HIV Aids” and help to contain this world plague.

We have been talking and discussing about the social responsibility of businesses in our country. How many of our firms in Mauritius have social responsibility programmes? Of the Mauritian firms who are reaping in annual profits of over hundreds of millions of rupees how many have an allocated annual budget to its social responsibility?

Fortunately some firms do take the issue seriously. For what I can glean from the press, Beach Comber group allocates substantial resources through the “Fondation Espoir et development” to put to action their social responsibility targets. Barclays Bank has a full time person looking into its social actions. What about the other firms?

Some would argue that you can only be philanthropic after you have collected enough wealth. I am of opinion that all businesses have a duty to have a social responsibility program what ever the size of the enterprise.

Is it possible to have a concerted effort to have a higher impact on the priority issues? In Mauritius we could well have a business coalition, along the line of the Global Business Coalition, to fight off the plagues that are rotting our society such as drug addition and HIV aids. Where are the leaders who would take up this challenge?

Interestingly enough, it may inspire you to visit the website of “The Leaders” of which Nelson Mandela is one of the figure head.