Social responsibility, which has become an integral part of a company’s operations, has provided the private sector various opportunities to contribute in Qatar’s economic progress.
The “historic” development of the private sector’s role in managing economic activity and development, as well as sustainable development, has led to new situations and new responsibilities, Qatar Chamber emphasised in its April 2020 issue of Al Moltaqa, a monthly economic magazine.
“The concept of community responsibility is a well-established concept and based on Islam, values, and society. It has become one of the most important factors used to measure the performance and contributions of companies and institutions in the society,” said Social Responsibility Committee (SRC) chairman Sheikh Dr Thani bin Ali al-Thani.
“It has also become one of the criteria for measuring the extent to which businesses respect their societal responsibilities and perform their moral duties to achieve well-being and development,” continued Sheikh Thani, who is also a board member of the Qatar International Centre for Conciliation and Arbitration (Qicca) at Qatar Chamber.
The chamber said this new role — social responsibility — redefines the private sector’s duty in dealing with social and environmental issues. The diversity of institutions that attempted to determine a definition of the social responsibility led to a large number of definitions of this relatively modern concept, the Chamber stated.
According to Qatar Chamber, all of these definitions mainly focus on the role of companies in social contribution towards those who are involved with, the community in which they are operating, the environment, and society as a whole.
Because of the spread of the social responsibility concept and its effect on the business environment, the performance assessment of private sector companies and organisations depend on the level of their social responsibility based on many criteria.
The most important of these criteria is the extent to which the company is committed to its responsibility towards workers and their families, the community, and society as a whole, as well as to how its products comply with environment standards.
“Therefore, the company’s commitment to social responsibility extends to meeting social requirements that lead to public confidence and consumer satisfaction, which helps companies achieve their economic goals, especially in the long term by strengthening the company’s reputation with the government.
“In this context, the State of Qatar showed an early interest in social responsibility by establishing, through a committee formed in 2018, the Qatari Social Responsibility Standards that launched platforms aimed at assessing the performance of companies and institutions in this field and awarding the leading companies in this regard,” the chamber stated.
Sheikh Thani noted that the SRC has been conducting many activities that promote and raise awareness about social responsibility through conferences, meetings, and seminars, as well as the launching of community initiatives.
The SRC also bestows social responsibility awards to honour distinguished and leading figures in community development through community responsibility aspects identified by the committee based on the Qatar National Vision 2030.

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