Ini's MUSE

When Women Gather Sitting in this flight to addis and my mind as usual is refusing to shut down and sleep on the five-hour flight.  I'm thinking of all sorts of things, my mind going from work issues to sponsorship issues to personal issues, to life, to love, to children, to needs, to wants, to shoes (which I am unapolegetically crazy about) and then it settles on this group of women I have come to know recently and we come together under a moniker "The Sisterhood". My Minks said it sounded like a cult and I said to her - This is one cult of joy I want to belong to. These women -three of them- have become my sisters, my friends, my laughing partners, my prayer lifters, and my comediennes. They are not your run of the mill women, they are super accomplished professionals, extremely smart and successful in their various businesses - they all sit on businesses that are well known and well run.  They are beautiful, well heeled, extremely intelligent, fashionable but most ...

CSR International: CSR in Nigeria : "By Wayne Visser A few thoughts after my trip to Lagos last month ... I am not naive enough to believe that CSR heralds a new dawn for Nige..."

As I began working as a CSR consultant, I have met with stiff resistance and unnecessary arguments about the concept of corporate social responsibility and the social contract. Critics of CSR argue that the social contract is a "fiction”, an intangible notion but I argue for the existence or existentiality of the social contract. The social contract exists and functions as a conceptual and analogical system. The emergence of CSR as an issue for business today is as result of the enormous and rapid changes in society that have occurred of late. Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them. It goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and addresses how companies manage their economic, social, and environmental impacts.   Important as well in this discourse is how they manage relationships within the business sphere: the workplace, the marketplace, the supply chain, the community, and the public policy realm....

South Africa joins Brazil, Russia, India and China as an emerging global force. This strategically positions Africa on the map. The strategic importance of this is no doubt a case for us to ponder in Nigeria.   Are we still the giant of Africa? For a while economic experts speculated and forecasted that Nigeria will be the first country in Africa to make it to BRIC because of her size and future economic growth. However, while we sat down as usual, waiting for it to be given to us because we are Nigeria, South Africa was busy lobbying for a membership into the league of the largest emerging economies - BRIC. Clearly, we have not shown leadership as the ‘giant of Africa” that we are.   Our Finance Minister has not shown his clear understanding of how critical it is that we are at the forefront of Africa’s economic issues.   For someone who was at Goldman Sachs, where Jim O’Neill forecasted the powerful placement of the BRIC countries for 2050, Aganga has not used his ...

Chart Of The Day II - The Atlantic

There's been a buzz around the hosting of the Africa CEO Round-table and Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria by Nigerians. The arguments state that Nigeria is no example for the practice of corporate social responsibility and that our corporate and social investments are more of corporate philanthropy than for social impact. Interestingly, the interest generated by this upcoming event is much more than we have expected.  Big brands from Brazil, Angola, South Africa, Ghana, USA, and the Netherlands have called in to indicate interest in attending and partnering on this continental epoch making event whilst the Nigerian organizations are on the peripheries. Is this a sign that we are truly not ready for the discourse and evolution of what corporate social responsibility and sustainability is all about? If your brand or organization were to be measured by your CSR, sustainability and green initiatives, what will be your score? Have you ever measured the impact...