This chapter evaluates the potential of the current CSR agenda for addressing international development challenges, by focusing on the experience of the oil and gas sector. Both development agencies and companies have in recent years made claims about the positive role that CSR could play in contributing to international development goals such as poverty alleviation and health improvements. As the UK Government's Department for International Development (DfID) argued, ‘By following socially responsible practices, the growth generated by the private sector will be more inclusive, equitable and poverty reducing’ (Department for International Development 2001, 2, quoted in Jenkins 2005, 525). The contribution of firms to development goals is particularly relevant in developing economies, where the state has often failed to provide basic infrastructure, education and health facilities.

The linking of CSR to international development goals is a hugely significant development, in that firms are not simply expected to act appropriately in terms of responsible environmental practices or health and safety, but also to play an important role in public interventions such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). If firms are seriously expected to play such a role, CSR cannot be simply seen from the business perspective, as the expectations of what CSR could potentially accomplish seem to have become much broader. From society's perspective, it is important to assess the contribution that private companies can make to international development goals.

What constitutes ‘international development’ can, of course, be differently interpreted.