PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR PROJECT SERVICES

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR PROJECT SERVICES

The business arm of the United Nations -- the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) -- was not small business anymore, its Executive Director, Reinhart Helmke, said this afternoon at Headquarters, as he briefed correspondents on "The UN and Business: A Partnership for the New Millennium", which will be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York on 31 May and 1 June.

Since its establishment in 1995, he continued, UNOPS had grown into a $1 billion business a year, with a total portfolio of projects of $4 billion, an annual turnaround of around $800 million, and generating an income of $50 million, which covers all costs. UNOPS was totally self-financed. It was also a business that respected "social responsibility". As an element of the United Nations, the values that underlay the conduct of the business were exactly the values enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

The event had three objectives, he said, namely:

-- To provide support to the Secretary-General's "Global Compact of shared values and principles" [in the areas of human rights, labour and the environment] with practical, operations-based experiences of the new types of partnerships;

-- To make that experience available to other United Nations entities that might not yet be working closely with private companies;

-- To end the event with a series of new partnerships, involving new United Nations and business partners, and not just with declarations, so that "working modalities" would be established that could show prospective partners exactly what worked and what did not.

The event would have three elements: the trade fair "Aid & Trade 2000"; a high- level conference, aimed at promoting the values of the Global Compact to both private sector companies, non-governmental organizations and civic organizations on the one hand, and United Nations entities on the other; and one day workshops, where new partnerships would be unveiled and presented.

Partners in the preparation of the event were: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP), Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Staff College, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, he said.

The list of speakers included: the Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Maria Cattaui; the permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke; Chairman/CEO of WorldSpace Corporation, Noah Samara; President of Instituto Ethos (Brazil), Oded Grajew; Executive Vice-President for Cisco Systems, Don Listwin; Senior Vice-President for Information at Ericsson, Lars Stalberg; CNN Anchor Jan Hopkins; and the Israeli Minister for Regional Cooperation, Shimon Peres. However, the list changed on a daily basis, and Mr. Helmke referred to the event's Web site www.unops.org/partnerships for updates.

Project Services Briefing - 2 - 6 April 2000

From the list of participating non-governmental organizations, he mentioned Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, Aid to Artisans, Landmine Survivors Network, The Sullivan Principles, and The Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum.

Discussions would be focused on two topics of interest to the business community and the United Nations: the way the two parties could work together in countries where there is a conflict or post-conflict situation or where future conflicts need to be prevented; and mine-action, which consisted not only of demining, but also addressed the needs of those who had suffered from anti-personnel landmines. The event was the first-ever such event to take place in North America, he said.

There had been ups and downs in the relationship between the United Nations and the private sector over the years, Mr. Helmke said in answer to a question. Over the last few years, more and more private sector companies had made agreements with the United Nations to make some monetary contributions -- such as UNFIP. The new partnerships, however, were moving in a different direction. It was no longer a matter of making a financial contribution to some United Nations project, but now private sector companies agreed with the United Nations on a joint objective and worked side by side with the Organization in order to achieve that objective.

As an example, he mentioned the partnership with Ericsson, highlighted in the Secretary-General's Millennium Report. Ericsson would make available telecommunications capabilities in emergency situations, so that there could be a United Nations disaster response within 24 hours.

UNOPS used competitive bidding in its commercial activities, he said in response to another question. However, the new types of partnerships were supplemental to the commercial relationships. They were, therefore, not subject to a competitive exercise. Should a profit-making company seek a partnership for a project that could also be acquired through a "regular job" on a commercial basis, then that company would have to subject itself to international competitive bidding.

He could not give an exact number of companies that were interested in that type of partnership, he said, but he was surprised at the number of responses from the private sector area. UNOPS was looking for companies that had already adopted socially responsible practices. Those companies did not necessarily have to come from the industrialized countries. Companies from developing countries were encouraged to participate. Social accountability was actually "good for the bottom line".

In answer to a question on what kind of role business could play in the resolution of conflicts, he said that the separation between business and political events had, in fact, never existed. In some countries, business had been fuelling the conflict. When businesses decided to invest based on political considerations and human rights, they also assumed a responsibility to act in a way that would not fuel conflict. It could even be imagined that some companies, through their partnership with the United Nations, would make actual proposals to the Secretary- General to assist positively towards resolving the conflict through private sector investments, especially in aiding a country in the transition from a war economy to a peace economy. That was the reason why some international insurance and re- insurance companies were involved in the event's high-level conference.

The "social values" that companies should adopt were defined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two

Covenants, in the conventions of the ILO, and in the environmental decisions taken during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, he said. There were formal standards to which companies could subject themselves to, and which were independently verified every six months.

The two major partners in the event were the private sector companies and the United Nations, but the event was open to all participants, he said, when asked a question about the participation of international labour unions. The United Nations, however, represented also the interests from some non-governmental organizations. Through the ILO, the international labour unions had said that, in order for standards to be acceptable to them, freedom of association had to be included.

As to the question about what the private sector could do that the United Nations, with its enormous budget, could not do, Mr. Helmke said that the new partnerships were not about obtaining funds from the private sector that Member States were not paying in contributions. It was more a recognition that the magnitude of moving into a conflict situation and relaunching a shattered economy was of such proportions that even with double or triple contributions from governments, the job could not be done by the United Nations alone.

In response to another question, he said that, for the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission, UNOPS had been the executing agency for the practical work. Since earlier attempts by other organizations had failed, and the level of the Commission's credibility had to be raised, UNOPS had to establish a network of fixed and roving officers for interviewing victims of human rights violations within three weeks.

In conclusion he said that the new type of partnership had to evolve, and trust had to be built. Levels of trust between private sector companies and agencies of the United Nations were not very high. "As confidence and trust in each other evolves", he said, "it is reasonable to assume that certain decisions of the kind that private-sector companies take, could be taken in the framework of a larger set of international values."

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