The Study of Endogenous Corporate Social Responsibility in Saudi Arabia

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is striving to reach the business community of Saudi Arabia from Western and International CSR prospective. However, they are faced with local endogenous CSR factors indicating the distinctive Saudi CSR features and characteristics originating from within Saudi Arabia during the current early CSR initiatives. Saudi Arabia is an advocate for Islamic teaching and practices, throughout the Islamic world abiding comprehensively to the Islamic social care system, which is interlocked with additional unique cultural, national, and social expectations. Those factors overlap with the semi-official governmental endorsements and the private sector’s unique conceptualization of CSR, which, in essence, formulate the endogenous distinctive Saudi CSR characteristics (Saudi CSR) considered to be under-researched in comparison to the CSR generic debate in other countries. The research questions are: what are the endogenous Saudi CSR Characteristics? How can they be related to the local Saudi CSR unique conceptualization? And could they be interpreted using Carroll’s 1779, 1991, and 3D CSR Models? The study primarily aims to empirically investigate, identify, and analyse the unique origination of the Saudi CSR model and the misconceptualizing it has to the International CSR regulatory framework. It also aims to provide a possible template for the Saudi National CSR strategy respectively. It focuses upon investigating whether the empirically formulated and identified Saudi endogenous CSR’s context and characteristics can be aligned, analysed and/or interpreted in light of CSR generic theories, and the international CSR standardization for reporting initiatives, including Carroll’s Four dimensions: 1979 and Pyramid 1991, and the Three-Domain 2004 CSR models (Mark et al., 2004). The analytical analysis demonstrates that a Saudi national CSR strategy has not been established yet; hence the current study provides a template for building up such strategy. A conceptualized theoretical framework is formulated utilizing both empirical evidence from pilot studies and the narrative analytical analysis, which aimed at identifying and exploring Saudi CSR uniqueness using an eclectic research approach. The indirect Saudi CSR evidence was investigated using questionnaires, document analysis and Semi-structured interviews, which comprised nearly 380 Saudi organizations within the private, listed, and Non-profit sectors. Data Analysis including King Khalid Foundation, Saudi companies and CSR Data reflection revealed a set of endogenous distinctive characteristics, which are validated using triangulation data collection tools. The findings of the study suggest that the Saudi CSR characteristics (endogenous features) fall within the following categories evidenced by their practical applications, Saudi companies’ strategic policies and Saudi leadership’s CSR own self-generated principles: (1) Islamic Philanthropy, (2) Social Obligation, (3) National Development Obligation (5) Corporate Citizenship (6) National Economic Developments (7) National Competitiveness, (8)Stakeholder’s Expectation and (9) Environmental and Global Expectation and (10) Corporate Governance. Furthermore, data analysis displays that Carroll’s 3D CSR model sets certain suitability limitations for Saudi CSR interpretations. It also reveals the need for utilizing the adopted Carroll’s combined model formulated in the present study; its utilization conforms to the Saudi CSR components while formulating the required Saudi national CSR

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Mapping routine measles vaccination in low- and middle-income countries

The safe, highly effective measles vaccine has been recommended globally since 1974, yet in 2017 there were more than 17 million cases of measles and 83,400 deaths in children under 5 years old, and more than 99% of both occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)1–4. Globally comparable, annual, local estimates of routine first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1) coverage are critical for understanding geographically precise immunity patterns, progress towards the targets of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), and high-risk areas amid disruptions to vaccination programmes caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)5–8. Here we generated annual estimates of routine childhood MCV1 coverage at 5 × 5-km2 pixel and second administrative levels from 2000 to 2019 in 101 LMICs, quantified geographical inequality and assessed vaccination status by geographical remoteness. After widespread MCV1 gains from 2000 to 2010, coverage regressed in more than half of the districts between 2010 and 2019, leaving many LMICs far from the GVAP goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019. MCV1 coverage was lower in rural than in urban locations, although a larger proportion of unvaccinated children overall lived in urban locations; strategies to provide essential vaccination services should address both geographical contexts. These results provide a tool for decision-makers to strengthen routine MCV1 immunization programmes and provide equitable disease protection for all children