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On 7-8 October, close to 40 leading experts from the academic and public
policy community, companies, the UN system, and governments gathered in New York
for an expert workshop on “Conflict-Sensitive Business Practices and Public
Policy Responses”. This meeting was part of the continuing
multi-stakeholder dialogue on the role of the private sector in zones of
conflict.
This event was the first of two expert group meetings the
Global Compact is convening. They are part of a broad ongoing consultation
process to obtain input toward the development of a comprehensive policy paper
that will provide recommendations to public sector actors in this area.
The policy paper’s objectives are:
(1) to develop actionable recommendations regarding the ways in which the UN system, international financial institutions, and governments can further engage with the private sector in conflict prevention and peace building, and
(2) to stimulate a debate within the UN system and governments on how they can work to provide an enabling environment for conflict-sensitive commercial activity in unstable environments around the world.
Participants of the workshop explored various issues, among them:
- Options for Governments to promote the implementation of existing voluntary initiatives in the areas of economic governance and security (i.e. the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative and the US-UK Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights).
- The need for public financial institutions to make Conflict Impact Assessments a requirement for access to export credit and project finance.
- Ways to create the conditions for on-the-ground collaboration between the UN and business in conflict-related situations.
There was a strong consensus among participants to go beyond the development
of policy recommendations. It was suggested that the Global Compact should adopt
a practical case-specific approach in a one conflict-prone country in order to
apply policy recommendations and to scale-up existing
initiatives.
For more information, please contact Helen Schulte (schulte@un.org).
Please click here for the agenda and a list of
participants.
