THE concept of corporate responsibility is considerably a new phenomenon for most of the people living in the Saarc region. In this region trade and commerce is still a family affair where management is personalised and financial controls are mostly with the owner.
Though these business houses are worth multimillion dollars and stable in make-up but they still need a shift in management system from strictly being personalised to corporatised so that the effects of expansion and growth reach common man on whose support a business entity flourishes. There is no denial of the fact that some of the business houses in the Saarc region did try to share their wealth with the common man to help them in different ways but in vain. They could not make their efforts longer lasting.
The family businesses in this region are renowned for their philanthropic ventures built public interest institutions, which were named after them. Many of them are still flourishing but a large number of them have disappeared with the passage of time. These philanthropists are now buried under the dust of the time and forgotten in the mist of history. Their business houses still exist but their philanthropic ventures have lapsed from consciousness.
There is need to understand and differentiate between philanthropic responsibility and corporate responsibility. Philanthropic responsibility is a personalised activity whereas corporate responsibility is collective effort aimed at institution building and, at the sane time, swabbing the wounds of injured souls.
Multinational companies in many developing countries are now doing this work.
They are introducing corporate responsibility models in three sectors such as education, women emancipation and health. One such model in the health sector is being followed by the Standard Chartered Bank, which it explained to newsmen from Pakistan visiting Singapore March 26-30, 2007, as 'Welcome week Singapore' guests.
HIV has gripped the attention of the world, so it has attracted the attention of SCB as a challenging task that calls for courage and commitment to deal with it. It is one of the fastest spreading killer diseases that have taken the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich by surprise. At one end the poor have an excuse of being unable to protect themselves against it for economic reasons and on the other the rich think they are immune to such infectious diseases. Money is there to protect them. They do not mind living a careless life.
But the Standard Chartered holds a different view and takes it as its corporate responsibility to help both; the rich as well as the poor - wherever they live. In Singapore HIV cases are on the rise. In fact it is an adversely affected place and needs help.
For example, out of the 149 Singaporeans detected to be HIV infected in the first six months, about 94 percent of the new cases detected were males and six percent were females.
Sexual transmission remains the main mode of HIV transmission among the Singaporeans. Of the 149 cases reported in the first six months of 2006, 133 cases acquired the infection through the sexual route, with heterosexual transmission accounting for 59 percent of infections, homosexual transmission 26 percent and bisexual transmission four percent. Intravenous drug use accounted for five percent HIV cases.
About half of all new cases reported in the first six months of 2006 were aged between 30 to 49 years of age. People aged between 20 to 29 years and those aged between 50 to 59 years each accounted for nearly one fifth of the cases. Approximately 60 percent were single, 30 percent married, seven percent divorced and three percent were widowed.
Of the 42 married men reported in the first six months of 2006, three of their spouses tested positive for HIV. Another 17 spouses tested negative. The HIV status of the remaining 22 spouses is pending further follow-up. Of the five married women three were spouses of infected married men. The husbands of other two women tested negative for HIV.
Out of 4.5 million Singaporeans, HIV infected population is 2,852. Of these 1,176 are asymptomatic carriers, 660 have AIDs-related illnesses and 1,016 have died. Heterosexual transmission has been the most common mode of HIV transmission among the Singaporeans since 1991.
Most of these cases contracted the infection through casual sex and sex with prostitutes in Singapore and overseas. Generally the ratio is eight males to one female.
About 83 percent of HIV cases are Chinese, nine percent Malays and five percent Indians. Charmaine Chow is the social scientist Standard Chartered has engaged to create awareness among the civil society and educate people on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.
In her interaction with some of the banks' employees and the journalist from Pakistan she said that SC has taken such exercises in some of the developing countries as well. In her view HIV/AIDS is a tabooed subject and people feel shy in discussing it whereas the silence makes the HIV/AIDS more lethal.
Taking up HIV/AIDS as a subject for discussion and spending substantial amount out of bank's earnings is part of corporate responsibility that SC has taken upon itself. It is a two-dimensional exercise: opening up dialogue on tabooed subjects and giving business entities responsible corporate citizen's status.