UNIDO Youth Caucus - Groupes virtuels - Communauté

Message

De:	United Nations Youth and Student Association of Austria [ Profil ]
Sujet:	Global Partners Symposium Report - 2nd try
Envoyé:	Mar 8th, 2005 - 05:41:00

	as it seems that the whole report attaching has not worked I will just paste it into this message. You can also find it on Youth Caucus page under documents and UNIDO Conferences. If you would like to comment on the report or the issue in general, it would be more than welcomed. Irene ------- Report from the Global Partners Symposium "Building Partnerships for Achieving the Millenium Development Goals: A Corporate Social Responsibility/Corporate Citizenship Approach" From Thursday, 3 March to Friday, 4 March the Global Partners Symposium organized jointly by UNIDO and Sandoz took place at the conference facilities of the UN Office at Vienna. The main goal of the symposium was to find ways to fulfill specifically the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) 1 (Fighting Poverty) and 6 (fighting HIV/AIDS) under the auspices of MDG 8 (Building Global Partnerships for Development). Under these considerations the other partner participating in this symposium was the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In his Welcome Speech UNIDO Director General Magarinos told the participants that UNIDO would sign a joint working program with Sandoz and the UNODC after the symposium since this would be the only way to fight poverty effectively. In the end Sandoz became the largest pharmaceutical company 2 or 3 weeks ago. As a matter of fact when researching the companys homepage the financial numbers are quite impressive. At the end of 2004 Sandoz employed about 13 400 people worldwide. The sales achieved were 3045 billion USD and the company owned an operating income of 235 mio USD. Compared to this the UN Industrial Development Organization seems to be small. Still, the management team of Sandoz - which was also represented by the CEO, the Head of Quality Assurance and the Head of Business Unit Biopharmaceuticals - welcomed this new partnership as for them UNIDO is a very prestigious and important partner in the fight against poverty and the distribution of pharmaceuticals to the very poor in developing countries. Eventually, it needs to be kept in mind that although Sandoz is a company which wants to make profit, it still lies within the corporate social responsibility of the company to contribute to fulfilling the Millenium Development Goals. The Symposium was comprised of four panels and a number of side events. Although the location (conference room number) of the panels was clear all room numbers where the side events took place were not mentioned in the program and therefore difficult to find. Despite this unfortunate coincidence the panels covered a wide range of different and interesting/important aspects of corporate social responsibility. The first panel was assessing the role of the private sector development for eradicating income poverty. At this panel representatives from both international organizations and private sector emphasized that the private sector plays a crucial role in this field although it would not be possible for them to save the world but still would like to be part solution. One very important example was that presented by the representative of Novartis which would provide 500 000 DOTS treatment from 2003 - 2007 through a Global Fund to treat Tuberculosis. Eventually, applying new technologies for achieving the MDGs; investing in the generic drugs industry: how stakeholders can co-operate to fight diseases in developing countries and capacity-building for quality and standardization in the pharmaceutical industry in developing countries and transition economies were the topics of the other three panels. As a conclusion the following statement can be made. The inclusion of the private sector is certainly essential for achieving the millenium development goals. As a matter of fact companies such as Sandoz are a powerful economic and in this respect also a social and political player today. Without them change is probably not possible. At all times though, the different natures of the players still needs to be kept in mind and put openely on the table. Without considering that a serious dialogue cannot be started. Eventually, UNIDO and Sandoz in Vienna should not only be close in their working programs by being just a few houses apart (UNIDO is geographically just a few blocks from Sandoz in the same street of Vienna) but also being close in their goals and achieving them in a proper and sound manner. ------ """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Irene B. STÖCKL, MA """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Vizepräsidentin Akademisches Forum für Außenpolitik - Österreich - Hochschulliga für die Vereinten Nationen (AFA) Vice-President United Nations Youth and Student Association of Austria - Academic Forum for Foreign Affairs - Austria (UNYSA-AUSTRIA) mailto:international (at) afa.at http://afa.at """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Office: Johannesgasse 2/2/32 A-1010 WIEN """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

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