UN Private-Sector Focal Points Gather in Paris

(Paris, 2 June 2006) – More than 80 participants representing United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and business gathered at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 1-2 June for the annual conference of UN private sector focal points. The meeting entitled “Towards Impact, Scale and Local Ownership: New tools and Mechanisms for Effective Partnership Management” offered participants the opportunity to share experiences and build upon lessons learned in the context of evolving UN-business partnerships. 

The focus of this fifth annual meeting was on strengthening the effectiveness of UN partnerships with the private sector, and improving the mechanisms to enhance communication, foster learning, advance coordination and improve collaboration.

Two issues were particularly highlighted in the course of the two-day meeting:

• Impact assessment of partnerships: discussions identified a need for developing effective review processes and impact assessment mechanisms to enhance the societal impact of partnerships and scale-up successful partnership models.
• Local ownership was identified as one of the areas where particular focus is needed – as partnership projects are increasingly carried out at the country level. Participants identified the need for training and capacity building of country offices, engagement of local groups (governments, businesses and NGOs) and allocating sufficient resources to get the work off the ground.

Several concrete proposals were made in a number of areas, such as UN-business policies, procedures and guidelines, training and capacity building, information sharing, impact assessment, local country-level ownership and resource mobilization for partnerships.

Please contact Ms. Melissa Powell (powell1@un.org; 1-212-963-0566) for more information.

Download the background document for the meeting.
Download the meeting agenda.
Download the participant list.

(Photo Credit: UNESCO/Michel Ravassard)