By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Jordan will be revitalised under a national body recently formed to coordinate the sector.

Spearheaded by Al Urdun Al Jadid Research Centre, the National Forum for Social Responsibility was formed last week to promote charitable acts and encourage firms and other institutions to give back to the local community.

“The forum is to serve as an umbrella organisation, as institutions usually do their own CSR without any coordination,” May Taher, deputy director of Al Urdun Al Jadid, told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

She noted that many firms’ CSR activities are concentrated in a few select areas and sectors, or in one particular time of year, such as Ramadan.

To address such shortcomings, the forum will aid institutions in identifying regions and social groups that are in need and to encourage year-round philanthropic activity rather than “one-time or ad-hoc activities”, Taher said.

As part of its mission, the forum will publish an annual report on the CSR sector in Jordan, in addition to a periodical newsletter to raise social responsibility awareness.

The forum, whose membership includes practitioners and experts in the field, will also offer training to aid companies in setting CSR policies or establishing social responsibility departments, in addition to consultancy on ongoing projects and initiatives, she noted.

Over 50 members from the public, private and civil society sectors are founding members of the forum, while the body’s steering committee, which will convene for the first time today, consists of 20 individual and organisational members including the Arab Potash Company, the Greater Amman Municipality, representatives of professional associations from the telecommunications and pharmaceutical sectors, universities, banks and NGOs.

The forum is to be officially launched at a Corporate Social Market expo next Monday, an event designed to gather 100 figures from the private and public sectors, professional associations and international and community-based organisations to highlight ongoing and potential CSR opportunities.

The expo will also serve as an opportunity to announce new private-civil society partnerships to launch local community-building initiatives, according to the centre.