Creating ‘sustainable’ tea: Reflections on corporate social responsibility in Tanzania
Résumé
A vast body of literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has developed that supports and critiques its principle of the “triple bottom line.” Moreover, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly promoted by the multi- and bi-lateral donors as means to increase investment in Africa. In an aid-dependent economy such as Tanzania, the expansion of agribusiness could draw the agricultural sector closer to the global market and private investment. However, this same expansion also impacts the country’s biodiversity, livelihoods of small farmers, and communities. Can “economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice” be achieved by the private sector working in the Global South? For example, Unilever, one of the leading Transnational Corporations (TNC) in the tea sector has been active in both CSR activities and in Tanzania, and is embarking on an interesting initiative that seeks to make all of its tea production “sustainable” by 2015. What role is Unilever playing in the development CSR initiatives and what might a study of their recent initiative in East Africa look like? This paper explores these questions through a deep review of the literature.