Until a couple of years ago, a local NGO would spend loads of money every year to operate a large fleet of air-conditioned ambulances. Funded primarily by a private equity firm that once managed $14 billion, the NGO would claim to be the country’s “largest private social sector enterprise”.

But now it exists only as a shadow of its former self: the private equity firm has collapsed and its founder is fighting criminal charges in the United States for misusing investors’ money.

This example perfectly illustrates the drawbacks of the sugar-daddy development model, which relies on rich corporations pumping money into their pet projects regardless of their sustainability or usefulness.

This kind of ‘development’ benefits both the government and the corporate sector. The former lightens its load of responsibilities by co-opting the latter as a stakeholder in development. The corporate sector gets to co-star in an artfully arranged development drama. Flashy projects earn it a ticket to respectability in society.

The government creates an integrity problem by setting up a ‘partnership’ with the corporate sector. Fleeting philanthropic enthusiasms result in instant donor gratification. But the overall performance remains patchy because there’s no singular vision, only contradictory intentions. The inherent diversity of diffused interest groups pushing their own agendas shows in the country’s ranking in the SDGs, which is going down.

Development is too serious a matter to entrust to the corporate sector. We can’t improvise at the edge of a catastrophe. Corporate philanthropy may sound seductive, but it’s too unmoored to ground realities

So a coal power producer gets to call itself an “environmentally aware company” while a bottled water entity brags about using better-quality plastic to package its product. Procedural improvements to mitigate the impact of business activity on the environment should be incumbent upon these conglomerates by way of regulation, which isn’t the case so far. Regulators seem to be in overdrive to relax regulations instead.

Hence, taking due care of the environment becomes a philanthropic activity and is used for image-building. As opposed to the ads that promote an actual product, we see minute-long TV commercials narrating made-up stories of rural characters whose lives changed forever after a benevolent company dug a hole in their village.

Going by the heavy advertisement focused on corporate philanthropy, one would assume the sector is spending a lot on corporate social responsibility (CSR). But that’s not true. The global benchmark for companies is to dish out two per cent of their bottom lines to passably pose as responsible corporate citizens.

According to the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a body with highbrow affiliates, its members collectively spent over Rs6 billion in CSR in 2017-18. That’s not even 0.4pc of the proposed Public Sector Development Programme. While every rupee is important in the fight against hunger and pollution, the aggregate spending number knocks the corporate sector off its messianic perch.

A noted trade association recently suggested to its members that their CSR spending be consolidated to run an existing vocational school to meet demand for trained industrial manpower. They turned the proposal down, saying it would deprive them of the individual recognition they deserve for philanthropy. Companies know that it’s just money when it’s spread out — it becomes capital only when it’s concentrated in their own hands.

Last year, the Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business — an initiative of the Pakistan Business Council (PBC) — conducted a survey among PBC members to find out how they have committed to sustainable development priority areas in terms of their corporate strategy and implementation.

Only 29 of the 67 companies bothered to respond to the questionnaire, with only 4pc of the responses coming directly from CEOs. “In terms of undertaking actions towards the SDGs, only 24pc of the respondent companies have mapped, aligned and embedded corporate strategies with the SDGs and publicly reports on the impact,” the survey report said.

Development is too serious a matter to entrust to the corporate sector. We can’t improvise while lingering at the edge of a catastrophe. Corporate philanthropy may sound seductive, but it’s too unmoored to ground realities. The government shouldn’t outsource the main job that it collects taxes for i.e. ensuring sustainable development for all.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 23rd, 2019