The organisers of the programme for facilitating philanthropy for development, who had aimed at initiating a corporate non-governmental organisation dialogue on Tuesday at Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commence and Industry found it frustrating as the corporate sector found it difficult to participate in the programme.
The Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) in collaboration with Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) had organised a 'Corporate-NGO Dialogue' to facilitate linkages between the corporate sector and the NGOs for promoting philanthropy for development.
The purpose of the dialogue remained half-fulfilled as the corporate sector showed its lack of interest in the dialogue "owing to its preoccupations" whereas the NGOs and the CBOs found an open forum to air their views.
The absence of majority of corporate sector invitees was discouraging for the representatives of NGOs and CBOs who had come to attend this dialogue with a hope of getting answers to their questions on the many veiled facets of the private philanthropy concept being propagated in Pakistan.
Speakers were of the opinion, however, that the multinational organisations were more clear on the issue of corporate sector-NGO partnership than the NGOs themselves and that they, corporate sector, had come forward with assistance in difficult times.
They said the assistance or what was now being termed as "giving" that flows from the corporate sector was either directed towards individuals or towards selected institutions. This had created distortions in the very concept of public philanthropy.
It was observed during discussion that credibility gap between the stakeholders - corporate sector, NGO and the public sector - existed. "It should be bridged" was the general opinion.
The participants said that the areas in need of improvement and the sectors where investment should be made had not been identified properly. "The needed identification is yet to be done," said one of the participants.
They quoted non-availability of potable water and non-existent sewers system as the basic need of the people in most of the areas of Pakistan.
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