United Nations Global Compact Seeks Humane Business Practices Worldwide
By: Dr. Uddesh Kohli, CEO, Power Finance Corporation (India) and IFTDO Past Chair and Past President

Dr. Uddesh Kohli, CEO, Power Finance Corporation (India) and IFTDO Past Chair and Past President, was among the top level participants from 50 transnational companies invited to a high level meeting by UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan. Other participants were from associations and civil society organisations worldwide. The meeting was held July 26, 2000 at the United Nations to launch the Global Compact Programme initiated by the Secretary General. The Global Compact Programme encourages the private sector and corporate organisations to embrace, support and enact a set of core values and responsible business practices in the areas of labour standards, human rights and environment. These principles derive from those already adopted by the world’s nations at prior UN meetings: The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labour Organisation’s Fundamental Principles on Rights at Work, and the Rio Principles on Environment and Development. The idea of the Compact is to get companies to sign on voluntarily to its principles.

The aim is to help strengthen the social pillars within which any market, including the global market, must be embedded if it is to survive and thrive. According to the Washington Post newspaper, “For all its growth-enhancing efficiency and opportunities to pull millions of people out of poverty… globalisation coexists with inequalities that threaten its legitimacy: Nearly three billion people – half of all humanity subsist on USD$2 a day or less. The growth of international rules on trade, and intellectual property are growing but are not matched by rules on the minimum conditions of work for workers or other social objectives. The backlash against globlisation, the U.N. argues, will gather force until its harsher side is softened.”

Business, labour and civil society participants welcomed the Global Compact as an innovative and timely initiative. They agreed to work together within the framework of the Compact to build a more inclusive global market – by promoting broadly shared values and practices that meet global social needs, and make globalization work for all people.

Under the 9 principles of the Global Compact Programme businesses should:

Human Rights
1. Support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights
2. Not be complicit in human rights abuses

Labour
3. Uphold freedom of association and effectively recognise the right to collective bargaining
4. Eliminate all forms of forced and compulsory labour
5. Support the effective abolition of child labour
6. Eliminate discrimination in respect to employment and occupation

Environment
7. Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges
8. Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility, and
9. Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Among the implementing actions are:

— Advocating the Compact in enterprise mission statements, annual reports and similar venues;
— At least once a year, posting on the Global Compact website specific examples of progress enterprises have made, or lessons they have learned, in putting the principles into practice;
— Joining with the United Nations in partnership projects, either at the policy level – for instance, a dialogue on the role of corporations in zones of conflict – or at the operational level in developing countries, such as helping villagers link up to the Internet, or strengthening small and medium-sised firms.
— The labor and civil society partners will help build and deepen the Compact, and lend their expertise and support to designing and implementing its undertakings.
— All participants agreed to help involve additional actors and to meet the goal of adding to the Compact coalition 100 large transnational corporations and 1,000 companies overall from across the world’s regions within a period of three years.
— Business associations also undertook to initiate concrete plans intended to advance the goals of the Compact. For example, the International Employers Association will organise regional workshops before the end of the year. The International Chamber of Commerce and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development propose to use the framework of the Compact to address not only environmental but also social issues and development when preparing the business contribution for the Rio-plus-ten conference in 2002.
— The Secretary-General reiterated his personal commitment to the initiative. He asked all participants to finalise a priority plan for collaborative action within the next five months and announced that he would establish a Global Compact Office to help make this happen.

VOLUNTARY INITIATIVES OF THE KIND REPRESENTED BY THE GLOBAL COMPACT ARE NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTION BY GOVERNMENTS AND OTHER ENTERPRISES WORLDWIDE. CONSIDER WHAT YOUR ENTERPRISE CAN DO.

For further information visit: www.unglobalcompact.org

Dr. Uddesh Kohli also participated as Employers’ Delegate from India in the 88th Session of the International Labour Conference held at Geneva from May 30 to June 15, 2000. One of the agenda items was human resource training and development. While addressing the conference, Dr. Kohli highlighted the role played by IFTDO in worldwide exchanges of human resource development research and best practices.