RELIGIOUS INSTITUITIONS’ SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TOWARD SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL SECURITY: THE CASE OF SELECTED RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Social security is a serious concern in Ethiopia where about a quarter of the population lives under poverty line. Unless this problem is resolved soon, it may be a cause for social crisis. Such a problem can be resolved by exploiting all possible options. Religious institutions’ role in social security seems to have received little attention in this regard. This paper examined religious institutions’ social responsibility toward social security in Ethiopia. The study focused on four religious institutions namely Catholic, Mekane Yesus, Muslim and Orthodox Tewahedo. They were selected for the study because they constitute the largest population. Qualitative approach was used to elicit in-depth information about the subject matter. The data were collected using interview from eleven key informants who assumed executive leadership positions in their respective institutions and who are knowledgeable and experienced in social responsibility endeavors of their institutions. The data were then analyzed qualitatively. The major findings indicated that all religious institutions discharged social responsibility through their development wings whose major dependence for finance is on foreign sources. Aside from these development wings, there were social responsibilities efforts done haphazardly, which ignored the bigger part of the religions power to engage. Therefore, it is imperative that the religious institutions exploit the existing culture of the people’s responsiveness to religious institutions’ calls for helping others in need. While strengthening the development initiatives, it is quite advisable that the religious institutions make the best use of the local resources for better reliability and sustainability of faith-based social responsibility implementation. To make this effective, there should be systematic and formal implementation, follow up, monitoring and communication schemes which in turn help the believers understand the outcomes of their engagement in the same.