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UN secretary general’s address
to the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2004. By Kofi Annan
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Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum. (UN Photo) |
Five years ago, here in Davos, I asked you, the world’s business leaders,
to join the United Nations on a journey.
You were already well embarked on a journey of your own - on the road to globalization.
At the time, globalization appeared to many to be almost a force of nature. And
it seemed to lead inexorably in one direction: ever-closer integration of markets,
ever-larger economies of scale, ever-bigger opportunities for profits and prosperity.
And yet even then - 10 months before the Seattle protests burst onto the scene
- I felt obliged to warn that globalization would be only as sustainable as the
social pillars on which it rested. Global unease about poverty, equity and marginalization
was beginning to reach critical mass. I was concerned that unless global markets
were embedded in shared values and responsible practices, the global economy would
be fragile, and vulnerable to backlash.
That was why I urged you, as a matter of enlightened self-interest as well as
the common interest, to work with us to build and fortify those social pillars.
I emphasized, in particular, the areas of human rights, labour standards and the
environment, on which your activities have such a direct and major impact.
And I called for a compact; not a contract; not a code of conduct; not a set of
regulations, or new system of monitoring, but a concrete expression of global
citizenship. I was looking for something that would strengthen the economic openness
that business needs to succeed, while also creating the opportunities that people
need to build better lives.
I am pleased that so many of you stepped forward to embrace that leadership challenge,
and to internalize the compact’s principles into your operations. Today,
more than 1,200 corporations are involved, from more than 70 countries, North
and South, and from virtually every sector of the economy. Civil society organizations
and the global labour movement have joined in the effort to make the compact work.
Governments are supporting the effort.
The compact has inspired dozens of practical initiatives on some of the key issues
of our times, from AIDS awareness to anti-corruption, from e-learning to eco-efficiency.
It has generated investment in some of the world’s poorest countries. And
it has opened the doors of the United Nations itself to new forms of partnership,
with many different stakeholders.
Yet much more can be accomplished - and it must. With that in mind, I am convening
a Global Compact Summit at UN Headquarters in June, to reassess and reposition
our efforts, aiming at even higher levels of achievement.
Dear friends.
Even as we deepen and expand the compact’s mission, the global landscape
around us is shifting profoundly, and in some respects adversely.
Today, not only the global economic environment, but also the global security
climate, and the very conduct of international politics, have become far less
favourable to the maintenance of a stable, equitable and rule-based global order.
So I come before you again, asking you to embrace an even bigger challenge - as
leaders of profit-making enterprises, to be sure, but also as global citizens
with enormous interests at stake.
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Mother and Child, Peru.
(UN Photo) |
Economically, we see dwindling investment in those parts of the developing world
where it is most needed, coupled with trade negotiations that have failed so far
to eliminate the system’s egregious biases against developing countries.
On the security front, international terrorism is not only a threat to peace and
stability. It also has the potential to exacerbate cultural, religious and ethnic
dividing lines. And the war against terrorism can sometimes aggravate those tensions,
as well as raising concerns about the protection of human rights and civil liberties.
As if all that were not enough, the role of the United Nations itself, the efficacy
of its charter, and the system of collective security are now under serious strain.
In just a few short years, the prevailing atmosphere has shifted from belief in
the near-inevitability of globalization to deep uncertainty about the very survival
of our global order.
This is a challenge for the United Nations. But it obliges the business community,
too, to ask how it can help put things right. Allow me to suggest some ways that
you might do your part.
In the economic realm, there is a direct connection between your interests and
the international community’s ability to meet the Millennium Development
Goals. The goals are central to our struggle for peace and human dignity. Yet
in the past year or two, the war in Iraq and other events caused our attention
to drift dangerously away from them. It is time to re-balance the international
agenda.
The goals offer a compelling platform for business involvement. The target for
water, for example, is to cut in half, by the year 2015, the proportion of people
without access to safe drinking water. That requires making 270,000 new connections
per day until then - something that governments, NGOs and development agencies
alone simply cannot do. I could give you similar numbers for many of the other
targets, and for the broader development investments needed to achieve them, from
energy to telecommunications.
The goals are intended, first and foremost, to help people. But they can be good
for business: first, because helping to build the infrastructure is an enormous
business opportunity; and second, because, once it is built, business will find
larger, eager markets in place.
I should stress that the Global Compact is not the only current United Nations
initiative, which aims to mobilize the great capacity of the private sector in
our fight against poverty. Last July, I asked the United Nations Development Program
to convene a Commission on the Private Sector and Development.
Prime Minister Martin, I would like to thank you for the dynamism you have brought
to the commission’s work, along with your co-chair, former president Zedillo
of Mexico. I know that you and your colleagues from the business and policy-making
communities have been working hard at all the key questions - in particular, how
multinational business can become a supportive partner for local entrepreneurs,
and help developing countries to build up their own independent private sectors.
I am sure you will give us solid recommendations that will help us tackle this
key development challenge - and I look forward to the commission’s report
in the months ahead.
Business also has great potential influence in the arena of trade. Business can
and should use that influence to help break the current impasse in talks. More
than anything else, we need a deal on agriculture that will help the poor.
No single issue more gravely imperils the multilateral trading system, from which
you benefit so much. Agricultural subsidies skew market forces. They damage the
environment. And they block poor-country exports from world markets, keeping them
from earning revenues that would dwarf any conceivable level of aid and investment
flows to those countries. For all our sakes, and for the credibility of the system
itself, they must be eliminated.
We also need your help in efforts to manage threats to peace and security, particularly
through your operations in countries afflicted by conflict. Businesses must find
ways of reducing the contribution - sometimes conscious, sometimes inadvertent
- that firms make to fuel conflicts, which are often related to factional competition
for control of natural resources. Business efforts to promote transparency and
fight corruption can help to prevent conflict from happening in the first place.
Business also has a powerful interest in helping to rebuild our system of collective
security, and thus prevent the world from sliding back into brute competition
based on the laws of the jungle.
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Secretary-General Kofi Annan meets with Paul Martin,
prime minister of Canada. UN Photo |
You know, all too well, how much business confidence depends on political stability
and security. I hope, therefore, that you will support the work of the high-level
panel, which I have asked to make recommendations on ways of dealing with threats
and challenges to peace and security in the 21st century.
People have described this as a panel on UN reform. It may indeed propose changes
in the rules and mechanisms of the United Nations. But if so, those changes will
be a means to an end, not the end itself. The object of the exercise is to find
a credible and convincing collective answer to the challenges of our time.
The charter of the United Nations is very clear. States have the right to defend
themselves - and each other - if attacked. But the first purpose of the United
Nations itself, laid down in Article 1, is "to take effective collective
measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace."
We must show that the United Nations is capable of fulfilling that purpose, not
just for the most privileged members of the Organization, who are currently -
and understandably - preoccupied with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
The United Nations must also protect millions of our fellow men and women from
the more familiar threats of poverty, hunger and deadly disease. We must understand
that a threat to some is a threat to all, and needs to be addressed accordingly.
I urge you all to tell your governments just how important this is to you, as
business leaders, and try to persuade them to support the panel’s recommendations,
when they are published later this year.
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A young woman from Shambiko, Eritrea.
UN Photo |
Indeed, the United Nations is not an end in itself. It is a means for building
a better world through reliance on universal principles - such as justice, respect
for international law, and the peaceful resolution of disputes - and the day-to-day
work of translating those principles into action.
To succeed in that mission, however, political leaders need to develop a deeper
awareness of their dual role. Each government has responsibilities towards its
own society. At the same time, governments are, collectively, the custodians of
our common life on this planet - a life that citizens of all countries share.
Each of us needs to promote that understanding. All of us need to work together
to that end.
I applaud the World Economic Forum for its efforts to engender a new concept of
corporate leadership, concerned with creating public value as well as private
profit. I also applaud the World Social Forum (Editor’s note: see article
page 12 this edition on World Social Forum) for drawing attention to those members
of the human family who have least, need most, and yet lack a voice.
And I hope that a way will soon be found to establish links between these two
communities. For all the differences between them, they are united by a shared
interest in a global order that is equitable, that is governed by the rule of
law, and that reflects the needs of all the world’s people. Let each of
us, and all of us, make that our overriding aim.
For more information visit www.un.org
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