CSR in Afghanistan

This chapter aims to address the relationship between CSR and development in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry as a novel context for the CSR literature. The Afghan context is conceptualized as an Area of Limited Statehood, indicating the inability of the Afghan state to deliver basic services required for markets to function in a least-developed nation. The chapter argues that pressures from “market anarchy” and “traditional communities” thereby prevail, and trigger the corporations to actively engage in CSR practices either as “victim of” or “solution to” the lack of development. Such CSR practices mainly target wider society beneficiaries, and have to some extent developmental impact due to urgent and widespread need for development in Afghanistan. However, the chapter concludes that the current business-driven CSR agenda has inherent limitations and fails to grasp the immense developmental potential offered by mobile technology for the poor in contexts such as Afghanistan.