Welcome Remarks by Ms. Anita Nirody UNDP Resident Representative. Egyptian Corporate Responsibility: The Way Forward

Transcription

1 Welcome Remarks by Ms. Anita Nirody UNDP Resident Representative ian Corporate Responsibility: The Way Forward Date: 22 June 2014 Venue: Conrad Hotel Ladies and Gentlemen, It s my pleasure to welcome you all today at the conference of the ian Corporate Responsibility Center (ECRC) entitled ian Corporate Responsibility & the way forward and I would like to thank our national counterparts the Industrial Modernization Centre (IMC) and the Ministry of Trade and Industry for their support and joint efforts in organizing today s event. I also wish to thank our counterparts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their continous support to the ECRC project especially post transition with the move of ECRC out of the ian Institute of Directors and into IMC. Please allow me to give you a brief overview on the history of the ian Corporate Responsibility Center (ECRC) project. ECRC was established in 2008 as a joint project between UNDP and the government of in follow up to the First Int. CSR Summit organized by UNDP and AmCHAM in Dec which also witnessed the launch of the first Business Solutions for HD Report that mapped the CSR context in and the gaps in promoting CSR. The Center s mandate was to fill such gaps, encourage sustainable business practices, serve as a knowledge hub for CSR in & a platform of engagement between the public and private sector and finally to become a place to go for capacity building in the areas of CSR and corporate governance. Please allow me a few minutes to give you a flavor of ECRC s achievements throughout the previous years and especially post revolution:

2 Thanks to the great support of the Netherlands government, ECRC has conducted CSR Sector Diagnostics for three main sectors: Financial, Agriculture and Textiles sectors. These reports assessed the current status of CSR identifying the challenges and strategies needed to promote CSR in a particular sector. You will be hearing soon from ECRC on the main findings of these sector studies. Also, ECRC has developed an Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Index to rank companies according to non-financial indicators looking at their compliance vis-a-vis environmental, social and governance performance. This in turn creates a healthy competition among companies listed in the ian stock market & promotes transparency and disclosure which is the first line defense against corruption Up to date, the index was used to produce 7 ranking reports from 2007 till On this occasion, I would like to thank our partner at the ian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) and the ian Stock Exchange for collaborating with ECRC in developing and promoting this index. In order to familiarize the youth on CSR and social entrepreneurship, ECRC partners with academia to promote such topics in the curriculum and it has sponsored around 13 ian students to study social entrepreneurship and CSR at an exchange programme with George Washington University. UNDP and ECRC have also supported the development of part of that course curriculum. A booklet with all the students case studies is currently under publication & will be available soon to enrich policy discussions and avail local case studies on that subject matter. ECRC acts as the focal point for the UN Global Compact (GC) Local Network in, the network has 77 active members and ECRC supports their efforts to implement the Ten Principles of GC related to human rights, labor rights, environmental protection and anti-corruption. One of the main activities of ECRC is to manage the Local GC Network through organizing roundtable discussions (19 roundtables discussions have been organized post revolution) to raise awareness and provide a platform for dialogue with PS. Great thanks goes to Mansour Group

3 who champions the GC principles in and act as the other focal point for the Local Network. I also wish to thank GIZ for their collaboration with ECRC in promoting GC principles at our joint Sustainable Business Circle events. In partnership with IMC, ECRC was proud to work on cluster development to promote social entrepreneurship and inclusive business models encouraging major multi-national corporations to expand their sales and production operations to include the poor at the Base of Pyramid (BOP) as employees, consumers or business owners. In, the opportunities for doing business with low income markets at the BOP are significant and this could be quite profitable if needs are tackled adequately. In this context, ECRC is working with IMC on scaling up the Growing Sustainable Business initiative which aims at expanding new products and services that address the needs of the poor. For example, we developed an initiative targeting Artisans which resulted in the take-off of a new label called Take Caire in December 2012 creating employment opportunities for artisans and generating innovative handicrafts in collaboration with local and international designers. I am also proud that Sharek.org, which is a volunteerism portal,was launched by UNDP and ECRC few weeks ago in cooperation with key partners: AmCHAM, Ministry of Planning, Nahdel El Mahroussa,PWC, P&G and IBM. UNDP and ECRC are currently working on promoting this portal to attract PS and tap into their knowledge and skills to tackle and address development challenges. These milestone achievements are paving the way for ECRC to expand its work, and please let me share some of our upcoming activities for the near future: As part of ECRC s effort to promote gender equality, the Center will be collaborating with UN Women to promote the GC s Women Empowerment Principles. Equality means business; the principles as such promote health and safety of women in the workplace, gender parity, non-discrimination, equal opportunities and promoting women s leadership. In this context, ECRC is working

4 on a Women on Board initiative in collaboration with AUC. The aim is to improve gender balance of corporate boards in. Female labor force participation in is around 18% while the aggregate percentage of women on corporate boards in is below 7%. Thus, WOB initiative aims to sensitize male board members to gender issues, qualifies women to be appointed as corporate boards, and advocates for policy and legislative changes that institutionalize gender diversity on corporate boards. This will be accomplished through multiple interventions to raise awareness, networking, coaching and facilitation to direct training for certification. ECRC is also working on the 2nd edition of the Business Solutions for Human Development Report which follows the 2007 edition. The report will focus on models of business engagements including sustainable business models & social entrepreneurship & how the private sector can contribute to meaningful and impactful development during the transition with clear focus on decent jobs, green jobs and poverty reduction. Also, thanks to the collaboration of the Arab African Int. Bank, ECRC is working on an initiative related to financial inclusion of the poor to improve their access to finance and give particular attention to promoting female access to credit. In closing, pls. let me reiterate that ECRC is there to support PS in their CSR efforts. The PS in creates around 70% of jobs, yet we believe it can play a greater role in promoting decent jobs, green jobs and fighting poverty. Poverty rate in has reached 26.3% in and given that Upper has the greatest share in such poverty, untapped opportunities in UE could be tackled to achieve equitable development through the innovative efforts of the PS. Business opportunities for PS lie at the bottom of the pyramid and this is the win-win solution that any company should strive for. In this critical time, PS companies can boost profits by tackling the BOP market. The year 2015 is around the corner and committed to achieve the MDGs by that date - this will not happen by government or by CSOs alone, the

5 private sector is a leader in this race. The private sector is also now engaged with UNDP in setting up the post 2015 MDG agenda. Finally, I would like to thank our key partners who contributed to the success of the ECRC project namely Ms. Sherine El Shorbagi and her team at the ECRC project, our national counterparts IMC and the Ministry of Trade and Industry and our active donors: the Netherlands Embassy in, Mansour Group, the Arab African International Bank and Dana gas. I also wish to thank all our speakers today for accepting our invitation and I look forward to the discussions in the coming sessions.