Reimagining Corporate–CSO Collaboration for Odisha’s Vision 2036
- Niraj Kumar
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Niraj Kumar
29th November, 2025
As Odisha faces rising climate shocks, one truth is becoming unmistakable: no single actor can secure the state’s future alone. Real progress now depends on how well corporates and CSOs learn to work together.
Odisha’s development story is unfolding in a climate that is becoming more unpredictable each year. Climate change is no longer a distant headline - it is a lived reality. Cyclones, heatwaves, water stress, and shifting ecological patterns now affect businesses, communities, and institutions alike. At the centre of these challenges stand two influential actors: corporations with resources and technology, and civil society organisations (CSOs) with deep community roots. When their strengths come together, progress becomes faster and more sustainable; when they remain disconnected, development slows. This article examines why their collaboration is crucial and how it can enable Odisha to move confidently toward its Vision 2036 aspirations.
Photo Courtesy: www.noaa.gov
The ideas in this article are drawn from the discussions at the Odisha Vikash Conclave 2025, organised by ICC, CYSD, OMC, and OneStage under the aegis of Odisha Development Initiative in Bhubaneswar on November 26–27, 2025. I could attend only two sessions, but they were enough to leave me thinking for days. The first, moderated by Shri Jagadanand Ji, Co-Founder of CYSD and one of India’s most respected development thinkers, initiated a powerful dialogue on how CSOs and corporations perceive each other, and why collaboration remains so challenging.
The second, chaired by Shri Pratyush Panda, CEO of OneStage and a veteran in CSR and sustainability, further advanced the discussion by asking what it would take to build genuine partnerships for Odisha’s development. The candour, disagreements, hopes, frustrations and bold suggestions shared in these conversations have directly shaped this article. Much of what follows captures the voices, dilemmas, and possibilities.
Odisha’s Climate Reality: The Future Is Already Here
Odisha’s climate story is unfolding in real time, across villages, towns, businesses, and policy corridors. With nearly 80 per cent of its districts exposed to climate hazards, the state is living through what much of the world only debates. Cyclones like Phailin, Titli, and Fani have torn through homes, farmlands, and forests, while inland regions struggle with rivers that overflow in one season and run dry in the next. Western districts battle drought-like conditions, coastal belts grapple with erosion and saline intrusion, and heatwaves make daily life harder. These shifts strike at the heart of Odisha’s livelihoods: farmers struggle with unpredictable rainfall, fisherfolk confront warming seas and rougher coasts, tribal communities see a decline in the quality of forest resources, and cities, from Bhubaneswar to Berhampur, feel mounting pressure on water, waste systems, wetlands, and green spaces.
Odisha’s Vision 2036 cannot be achieved without embedding sustainability and climate resilience across every sector. Corporations bring technology, financing, and managerial sophistication; CSOs contribute community knowledge, trust, and social mobilisation. Together, they can support integrated, landscape-level climate solutions.
What’s Holding Us Back? The Gaps in Corporate–CSO Collaboration
Despite broad agreement on the need for collective action, the current landscape of corporate–CSO engagement remains fragmented and uneven. Conversations at the conclave made it evident that several deep-rooted systemic issues continue to hinder genuine collaboration, limiting the potential for coordinated, climate-resilient development. The most pressing gaps include the following:
The Missing Voice: Corporate Absence in Odisha’s Development Dialogue:
One of the most striking concerns voiced at the conclave was the noticeably low participation of corporate leaders in conversations on Odisha’s development. While companies do spend through CSR, many remain focused on fulfilling compliance requirements or advancing their own organisational agendas, rather than engaging deeply with broader development challenges. In several mining and industrial districts, CSR decisions are often shaped more by administrative relations and visibility needs than by long-term sustainability thinking. This limited presence and engagement from corporates left many participants discouraged, as it reduced opportunities for genuine dialogue and interaction. The result is a landscape of isolated, project-driven interventions rather than coordinated, strategic efforts to build resilience across the state.
Beneath the Surface: The Trust Gap No One Says Aloud:
During the deliberations, one issue surfaced not through direct confrontation but through the tone, questions, and overall mood in the room: a subtle yet unmistakable trust deficit between corporations and CSOs. Corporations sometimes view CSOs as lacking professionalism and specialisation, while CSOs often feel that corporate actors prioritise visibility, administrative convenience, or organisational interests over genuine community needs. Though rarely articulated openly, this mutual hesitation, though in the background, quietly shapes how each side approaches the other. Without addressing this underlying trust gap, even the best-designed partnerships struggle to reach their full potential.
Photo courtesy: Hill Post
When Foundations Take Over: The Shrinking Space for Local CSOs:
A recurring sentiment among CSO and NGO representatives at the conclave was the feeling of being gradually pushed to the margins as corporate foundations expand their footprint. With more than 65 per cent of CSR funds now routed through in-house foundations, corporations often prefer to implement projects themselves rather than partner with independent, community-rooted organisations. While corporate foundations bring professional management and scale, their dominance inadvertently crowds out smaller grassroots CSOs who possess the deepest contextual knowledge, cultural understanding, and long-term presence in tribal and remote districts.
The Capacity Gap: How Grassroots CSOs Are Seen by Corporations:
Another undercurrent during the discussions was the perception, often expressed subtly by corporate representatives, that many grassroots NGOs lack the level of professionalism expected in today’s CSR ecosystem. Local CSOs frequently operate with limited financial systems, digital tools, GIS capabilities, and formal reporting processes, making it difficult to meet the compliance-heavy requirements of corporate CSR. Although these organisations have strong community relationships and invaluable field knowledge, they struggle to compete with larger national NGOs or corporate foundations that present impressive proposals, polished MIS dashboards, and structured project management frameworks.
When Goals Don’t Align: The Corporate–CSO Priority Divide:
Corporations often prefer tangible, short-term, infrastructure-oriented activities because these projects deliver quick wins, high visibility, and smoother approval from local administration and political masters. Grassroots CSOs and local NGOs, however, tend to prioritise long-term, systemic work that is slower, less visible, and harder to quantify. These differing incentives create a disconnect. As a result, true collaboration becomes difficult and often fails to address the deeper structural issues that climate resilience requires.
The Missing Platform: Odisha’s Biggest Collaboration Gap:
This was one issue on which nearly everyone in the room agreed: Odisha lacks a permanent, institutionalised forum that brings corporates, CSOs, government departments, academia, and community institutions together for regular dialogue, joint planning, and collective review. Yet, even with a clear consensus on the problem, the pathway to building such a platform remained uncertain - no one seemed entirely sure who should anchor it or how it should be structured. In the absence of such coordination, efforts remain fragmented, disconnected from broader climate strategies, and often unintentionally overlapping or competing at the district level. If Odisha is serious about working on this critical agenda, establishing such a platform must become a clear priority rather than an afterthought.
Odisha’s Success Formula: Co-Design, Co-Execute, Co-Monitor, Co-Learn:
For Odisha to move from intention to impact, collaboration cannot remain an aspiration; it must become the operating norm, and co-implementation offers the most feasible and effective way forward. It brings together corporate efficiency, CSO insight, and community participation within one practical framework. Joint planning (co-design) ensures that climate vulnerabilities are assessed together and priorities are set with local realities in mind, as seen in ODRP and ICZMP. Collaborative execution (co-execution) allows CSOs to lead mobilisation and institution-building while corporations provide technology, predictable funding, and professional management, an approach already proven effective in the Odisha Millets Mission and Kendrapara’s mangrove restoration. Shared monitoring (co-monitoring) focuses on real ecological and social outcomes rather than mere activity counts, combining corporate MIS tools with CSO field data and community scorecards.
Photo Courtesy: www.amle.org
Continuous learning (co-learning) through climate labs, exposure visits, and joint reviews helps refine strategies as conditions change, much like the iterative strengthening seen in Mission Shakti. Together, these elements shape a governance model that is not only feasible but indispensable, one that fosters synergy, strengthens transparency, and builds shared responsibility for Odisha’s climate-secure future.
Odisha’s Collaboration Framework: What Must Come Next
Building climate resilience in Odisha requires a coordinated architecture for collaboration—ambitious yet fully achievable. The first priority is to institutionalise a state-level, multi-stakeholder climate platform anchored in a neutral knowledge institution where corporates, CSOs, government, academia, and community bodies can jointly plan and review strategies. CSR must also evolve from scattered activities to longer-term commitments, allowing deeper engagement and stronger ecological outcomes through thematic portfolios such as watersheds, biodiversity, FPOs, and women-led green enterprises.
For collaboration to be fair and effective, strengthening grassroots CSO capacities is essential. Meanwhile, community institutions such as Mission Shakti groups, water user associations, forest rights committees, and FPOs must remain central to planning and monitoring. Odisha can further accelerate progress by adopting blended climate finance, pooling CSR with DMF, government schemes, philanthropy, and climate instruments like carbon credits.
A resilient system also relies on a robust co-learning ecosystem, where universities and research institutions generate evidence, document best practices, and facilitate continuous knowledge exchange. Above all, trust is the glue that holds this architecture together. Greater transparency and joint processes are essential for rebuilding confidence between corporations and CSOs and creating the foundation for a genuine, long-term partnership.
Academic institutions can play the role of a neutral anchor - researching, convening, training, and enabling evidence-based collaboration between corporations, CSOs, and community institutions.
Let’s convert Challenge into Possibility
Odisha stands at a defining moment. Climate change is reshaping its ecological, social, and economic realities, but it also offers a rare opportunity to redesign the state’s development trajectory through genuine collaboration. Corporations bring technology, scale, and investment; CSOs contribute community wisdom, trust, and deep social mobilisation; and communities themselves offer stewardship and lived experience. When these strengths converge in a spirit of shared purpose, Odisha can shift from scattered, project-driven efforts to a cohesive model of climate-resilient and inclusive development.
With a long-term vision, strong institutional partnerships, and a commitment to shared responsibility, Odisha is well placed not just to respond to climate challenges but to lead the country in demonstrating what a resilient, equitable, and future-ready state can look like. This is the moment to align ambition with action and turn the aspirations of Vision 2036 into a collective, climate-secure reality.
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