Corporate Social Responsibility in Mozambique

Abstract

Mozambique is a young African country with a strong growing economy and increasing foreign direct investment. We can observe a rising number of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects and activities in the country. Nevertheless there is still no systematic approach or coordination through public authorities or the business sector itself. CSR is mainly motivated by immediate own company needs like training or health of workers. We also find philanthropy projects as well as projects supporting local communities on development priorities, mainly health, education and community development. CSR, as part of a business concept, is mainly limited to large companies and foreign investors with international experience and less to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Many national companies, especially SMEs still do not have the CSR capacity or the respective mind set. First of all it is the mega projects that have their professional CSR departments and budgets. In the mining sector a CSR component is now compulsory by law since 2014. As public institutions are weak, CSR in Mozambique is more about “CSR towards compliance” and sometimes less about “CSR beyond compliance”. Strong views are expressed by civil society that for example the enforcement of labour legislation within companies is weak and hardly controllable by the government. This fact combined with corruption issues makes CSR towards compliance of existing labour, environmental, fiscal laws and other regulation an important topic. Nevertheless it is questionable if this should be considered as CSR. CSR in general is sometimes seen as “green washing” by big investors, benefitting on the other hand from generous tax exemptions and special deals with the government. Nevertheless, CSR is of growing importance in Mozambique and as the new mining CSR law shows, government is slowly entering the CSR landscape. A better coordination and public-private dialogue about CSR is necessary in order to make it a more useful and an efficient instrument for development. Nevertheless it should be clear that CSR is voluntary and in a globalized economy with international value chains becomes more and more an international issue.