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WHAT INITIATIVES HAVE THE SRI LANKAN COMPANIES TAKEN SO FAR WITH REGARDS TO ACHIEVEING ZERO HUNGER?
Sustainability and Three-Pillar Model
A THOUGHT ON SUSTAINABILITY Today's executives deal with a complex and unprecedented filter of social, environmental, market, and technological trends, which require sophisticated, sustainability-based management (Whelan & Fink, 2016) . Sustainability is all about meeting the current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Garren & Brinkmann, 2018) . When people hear the word “sustainable”, the first thing that comes to mind is usually the environment. Despite popular belief, environmental conservation is not the only concept of sustainability. Indeed, the environment is only one of the three pillars of sustainability, which also include society and the economy. UNDERSTANDING THE THREE-PILLAR MODEL The ‘Three-Pillar Model’ of sustainability is an approach to promote sustainable trading by developing and managing social, environmental and economic factors for the betterment of the company and future generations (Beattie, 2021) ....
1. Many companies conduct CSR projects to help low - income - earners in order to address their hunger.
ReplyDelete2. A majority of media companies and some other companies have volunteered to organize many welfare activities during disastrous situations such as floods, storms and cyclones, and earth slips.
4. Some companies offer education - based scholarships for children from the low income families to develop their future. This will be a long term mission to reduce the hunger.
Suggestion - Most of the large scale hotels and restaurants waste a large amount of food. It would be better if a mechanism is implemented to distribute those wasted food items among the people in hunger.
Suggestion - Other profitable governmental and non-governmental organizations should be encouraged to carry out more CSR activities as projects to address the hunger.
Damith Kaluarachchi,
Manager - IT operations
•GFlock is a company that continues to take initiatives to feed the unfortunate, helpless and victimized group in the society under the project name "GFlock Life", with the intention of uplifting their standard of life. GFlock helps the community together with the support and contribution received from their customers as well. Below are some of the food programs that were initiated under GFlock Life:
ReplyDelete•Helped families who were affected by floods and were under lockdown and quarantine at Ganepola and Koturupa in Gampaha district, by distributing essential food items.
•Distributed essential goods including food items to the employees of Pahasara garments, Ganepola, who were affected by COVID and were under quarantine.
•Continuing to distribute monthly essential goods to the employees of their supplier garments to uplift the standard of life of garment workers. Some of these garments are DC Apparels, Payagala and Lavanya Garments, Piliyandala.
•Distributed essential goods to the less-fortunate families in Colombo, and transferred funds needed to purchase necessities for the families residing out of Colombo.
(Source: https://www.facebook.com/GflockClothing, https://www.facebook.com/gflocklife)
Hashani Fernando - Senior Software Engineer
In General Terms, SL companies do execute CSR activities, projects in order to reduce the gap in Hunger when the nation experiences disastrous situations.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion is to cope up with the National Strategic Review of Food Security and Nutrition towards Zero Hunger.
Companies need to think in terms of Long term perspective and assist the government policies and strategies, while continuing the on going CSR activities and the projects.
The Main point is to identify the root cause for Hunger and try to come up with solutions and strategies. SL has a comparatively high inequality of income distribution and the GINI figure says it all.
Private sector could assist the government in this task, going for zero Hunger in 2030 with their resources and capabilities in efficient strategy making.
If we are not getting to the root cause of this issue it will just putting temporary solutions then and there without addressing the real issue in the country.
To Conclude, my point is if the two sectors could stand as one and build more broader framework with the probable strategy amendments addressing the root cause we could easily go for Zero Hunger in 2030.
Asel Fernando
Intern - Capital Markets
- There are several drivers behind hunger in Sri Lanka.
ReplyDeleteo Stagnant growth in crops in recent years & considerable % of crops end up being
wasted, never reaching hungry people.
o Rising food prices
o Unemployment is also a major factor behind food insecurity and hunger in Sri Lanka.
- Many private sector organizations in Sri Lanka, , consider socio-economic & environmental impact as a part of their accountability & make individual contributions to address these issues by way of donations , employment opportunities & food waste Management programs .etc .
- These programmes operates on a voluntary basis & have been developed by companies according to the organizational interests . However there is a clear requirement to introduce solid CSR base platform & policies to get private sector contributions that can make a larger impact
- As such sustainable change will require to (i) Define critical issues (ii) guidance for solutions tailored to the context and (iii) defined private sector incentives for CSR support (ideally show financial gains ) ..etc . and most of all an inter-institutional structure that is able to coordinate a national program across all scales.
- With such framework private sector companies, NGOs and INGOs can use their strengths to help their communities more effectively by engaging in collaborative partnerships with each other by utilizing resources better, their contributions can make a larger impact.
Menaka Rajapakse
Assistant General Manager (AGM)
Our governemnt has taken initiatives to provide relief to the less fortunate and pregnant mothers by providing them with gift vouchers for essentials and monthlyb allowances. However, since these intiatives are mismanaged by the officials , these benifits are enjoyed by those who are not eligble aswell.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I propose that the governemnt should collaborate with Sri Lanka's leading organizations to properly select and categorize less fortunate families and provide them monthly with vouchers for them to obtain food and dry rations. Further, they should identify schools with malnourished children provide them with milk and and healthy lunch options daily.
However as my thought, the only solution to curb hunger is the education. Those who make an effort to excel on their own will never rely on anyone to obtain their daily needs.
Lalith Hettiarachchi
Material controller