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Corporate Social Responsibility: Opportunities for Reproductive Health

The Commercial Market Strategies project defines CSR as the responsibilities that a company has to its stakeholders — including employees, their communities, consumers or customers, shareholders, and key host government agencies— and the actions that the company takes to address and balance the expectations of these stakeholders. While many CSR programs are run by corporations alone, there is growing appreciation for the synergies created by CSR partnerships between corporations and the public sector, donors, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although health-related CSR programs are fairly common, reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) initiatives are underrepresented in the global portfolio of CSR programs. To help facilitate the inclusion of RH initiatives in CSR programs, this paper addresses the following questions: What are the motivations behind CSR programs, and what are current CSR trends? What characterizes different CSR models, and how does each model lend itself to the inclusion of family planning and reproductive health services? What opportunities exist for partnerships focused on reproductive health? CMS found that most companies do not view their social and financial responsibilities as mutually exclusive; instead, they link CSR to their core business strategies. CMS also found that a company's stakeholders play an influential role in selecting and designing its CSR program. Companies are increasingly interested in forming partnerships with the public sector or NGOs, in order to bring technical expertise or other resources to CSR programs.