In the making: CSR and women's rights in South Asia

For businesses worldwide, corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has come to be understood as a broader obligation to stakeholders, not just a narrow answerability to shareholders. In theory, CSR is getting more and more in line with economist John Elkington's elevating principle of the Triple Bottom Line that gauges organisational success on social, ecological and economic fronts all at once. Triple bottom line directly addresses any business' three key concerns—people, planet and profit. It would seem that women's rights would find a prominent place of focus within these three concerns. However, in practice, Corporations have limited focus on women's rights or on issues related to women. In its annual audit of funding sources for global women's rights organisations, the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) found that less than 1 per cent of the revenue of these organisations came from corporate contributions. For the report called 'Where Is the Money for Women's Rights,' AWID surveyed 1,000 women's organizations in 94 countries worldwide. This review aims to build an understanding of CSR initiatives and assess the position of women's rights concerns in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.