Foreign investors spend Rs12 billion in FY22 on CSR activities

KARACHI: The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), the collective voice of top foreign investors in Pakistan, has revealed the results of its annual “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report 2022”.

The CSR survey results reaffirmed the OICCI members’ commitment in support of the socioeconomic development of the communities in which they operate in Pakistan.

The OICCI CSR Report 2022 reflects, in brief, the essence of the CSR activities of the OICCI members who during 2021/22, collectively, invested over Rs12 billion as against Rs11 billion in the preceding fiscal year.

They also reached out to around 46 million direct beneficiaries throughout Pakistan during the year under review.

The OICCI members and their employees also contributed 1.5 million man-hours and partnered with over 280 social and development sector organisations in fulfilling their unique CSR programmes.

Ghias Khan, president of the OICCI, commenting on the CSR initiatives said: “The OICCI members, led by example during the Covid-19 pandemic and have also shown their commitments towards mitigating the suffering of the 2022 flood victims by actively participating in the relief activities, as well as announcing generous commitments of around Rs9 billion, in addition to their CSR contributions of Rs12 billion.

“Besides the financial contribution, Khan said: “OICCI was the first chamber in Pakistan to have organised in March 2022 an international climate conference, highlighting the need to take proactive actions to protect the life and livelihood of the people from negative effects of global warming.”

Throughout 2022, the OICCI members participated in numerous philanthropic projects, divergent from the traditional CSR activities, to show their commitment towards paying back to the society, in collaboration with the key social sector partners. These social initiatives were focused on the society’s betterment, including various dedicated programmes to improve the education, healthcare, livelihood, infrastructural development and environmental sustainability sectors.

Commenting on foreign investors commitment towards the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), OICCI Vice President Amir Paracha said: “An overwhelming 89 per cent of the participating OICCI members focused on health and wellbeing and actively supported the health and nutrition-related initiatives through donations to reputable hospitals, medical care camps and health awareness campaigns.”

Further, Paracha said: “Over 75 per cent of the participating members contributed towards quality education by funding for improved primary and secondary school facilities, scholarships and various vocational training programmes for skills development.

Moreover, around two-thirds of the participating members focused on gender equality to promote women empowerment activities and actively pursued the “OICCI Women” initiative.

The geographic distribution of the CSR activities was spread towards all the four provinces of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. Around one-third of the CSR activities were focused on Sindh and another 28 per cent in Punjab.

The OICCI is the collective voice of major foreign investors in Pakistan. Over 200 OICCI members from 31 different countries have a presence in 14 sectors of the economy and contribute around one-third of Pakistan’s total tax revenue, besides facilitating the transfer of technology and skills and providing employment to a sizeable number of people.

Around a third of the OICCI member companies are listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange and 40 members are associates of the Global Fortune 500 companies. Besides their business operations, the OICCI members realise their corporate social responsibilities and are major contributors to various CSR activities, benefitting 46 million persons from the underprivileged communities.

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