Issue: 7
The Turkish villagers were looking for a good buyer who would pay a fair price for their product, and they had lots of stories. This combination started a ‘fair trade' between Paris and Suvarlı, a small town of about 5,000 inhabitants in Southeastern Turkey.
Nicholas Mounard is the representative of a French company called “Alter-Eco” , which is a prominent actor in the ‘fair trade' system. Nicolas hiked in the mountainous countryside between Adıyaman and Gaziantep in the beginning of June to see whether they could take small Turkish producers on board as well. And indeed intensive negotiations and a bit of convincing power led to a three-year agreement between the small farmers of Suvarli and Alter-Eco Commerce Equitable . According to the contract, Suvarlı villagers will produce good quality Besni grapes, preferably organic, and the French company will initially buy 4 tonnes of it after the harvest, for a price which is well over what the villagers were paid by other tradesmen before. So why does Alter-Eco do this? “After all, we are also tradesmen”, said Nicolas; “but our company is doing it for ‘fair trade'.” So we asked Nicholas Mounard, Producer Support Manager of Alter -Eco Company , what ‘Fair Trade' was.
Nicholas Mounard (N.M.): Fair Trade is based on different commitments. First of all, we pay a fair price. Fair price is a price that covers the cost of production. Then, it's a direct link. We work directly with the producer. Generally we speak with a producer organization. And we work in a transparent way. That means, we ask them to give all the information about cost structure, about accounting, everything. And for our part, we tell everything about our margin, about the way we deal with the product, who are our customers. A last criteria would be to work with sustainable agriculture, it means environmental-friendly production. It can be organic or non-organic, but it has to be sustainable and it has to respect the land.
UNDP Turkey: So who are you, then? Will you please tell us about your company?
N.M.: I'm working for Alter-Eco. It's a French-based company but we also have a subsidiary in the U.S. The company was created in 1998, under an association. It was created by my boss, Tristan Lecomte. He opened two shops in Paris, selling food and handicrafts. But under this business model it didn't really work, because we couldn't make big volumes. Our volumes are quite an important thing for us because we pay more, so with big volumes you can crash the fixed cost. Through the shops, it wasn't efficient enough, so we closed the shop in 2000 and re-opened a company, called Alter-Eco, with a new business model, mainly oriented towards supermarkets. We are importing products from 37 co-operatives in 30 countries and we are selling under our own brand.
UNDP Turkey: Which countries, for example?
N.M.: Around 50% of our turnover is coming from South America: Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador. Between 35-40% -these are products like tea, rice, spices and sugar- from Asian countries such as Phillippines, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. We also get olive oil from Palestine. And 15% from Africa: like Togo, Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa. For example, Ethiopia is making coffee. South Africa is making red tea. Ghana is making cocoa and chocolate. Togo is making dry fruits.
UNDP Turkey: How did ‘Fair Trade' start?
N.M.: Fair Trade appeared in the 1950s and the 60s. At the beginning it was mainly a religious movement. It was linked with the protestant church and the catholic church. During the 70s and the 80s, it became more political, with organizations such as Oxfam in Europe. They were making fair trade and also lobbying for better trading conditions against the World Trade Organization, or lobbying for the cancellation of the debts of poor countries. In 1990s appeared some new actors that were more oriented towards touching the everyday people, excluding any political opinion, just making fair trade and trying to develop trade volumes. To develop the volumes you have to go where people are going, so these actors made the choice to enter the supermarkets. That's what we did.
UNDP Turkey: How many companies are there, such as yours?
N.M.: I can't give you an exact number, but you can find two or three main companies in every developed country. It's mainly developed in Switzerland, Germany, U.K. and Italy. It's still very young in the U.S. and in Japan.
UNDP Turkey: How do you find your producers? Or do they find you?
N.M.: Both actually. Most of the products we are buying are certified by an association called “Fair Trade Labelling Organization" (FLO). They are based in Germany, in Bonn. They are certifying producer organizations under certain criteria which are social, economic and environmental. So FLO is a good basis for us because they give us the data base for all the producer organizations that they certify.
UNDP Turkey: Is it like a voluntary organization or do you pay for it?
N.M.: No, the system is organized like this: in every country you have what they call national initiatives. These organizations were born to promote ‘fair trade'. And then in the 90s, they decided that they should merge and have a common system for creating a common association called the FLO. FLO is owned by all national initiatives. So for every product, like for chocolate, for sugar, grapefruit, tea, coffee, etc., they will set the rules for buying fair trade products, saying “you should pay this price, you should be careful about this criteria" etc. So FLO is making the rules and making the certification under the criteria. FLO is a private company, they are making the certification and they go to every single organization to certify them.
UNDP Turkey: But Turkey is not included in this organization?
N.M.: No, there does not seem to be any Turkish organizations. That's why FLO is not our only source of information. Sometimes, for different reasons, we go outside because there is no standard for such and such a product. There's no rule, like for olive oil for example, importing olive oil from Palestine and from Morocco. But there is no rule for olive oil. FLO is not saying “you should pay that price for olive oil", so we cannot have any certified organization. If we want to make a fair trade (olive oil in this example), we have to identify the group, we have to identify what is a “fair trade price", we have to do all that job by ourself. So in that case, we really use our network, which is a network of producer organizations, NGOs, even Oxfam or the other fair traders, and they can tell us “OK, you should maybe go and see that organization that might do the products you need." We also receive a lot of offers from organizations writing to us or calling, saying “I have a very good product, you might be interested in buying this product." They usually send us samples of their product; we test it, and if we like it, and if there's a market opportunity, we go there to see what we can do.
UNDP Turkey: Is there a limit to the variety of the products? For example, if an oil producer in Turkey approaches you, what happens if you already have a few variety of (olive oil) offers?
N.M.: Well, you can work on a few different criteria. First of all, you either make the choice to work with more organizations, or you want to make the choice to strengthen the relationship with the organization you are already working with. So you are both driven by market demand, what market wants, and by your choice in the face of the organization you're working with. Let's take an example, olive oil organization in Turkey... We just have to see what the market is: do we need more volumes than we are doing right now, and if yes, what should we do? Should we just strengthen the organization we are working with, or should we work with another one? Usually we make the choice to have more impact of the producer we are working with, just because this producer, they usually don't sell all their product to us, they are just selling 10% of their volumes on the fair trade market and the rest on the conventional market. So usually the objective is to make fair trade proportion grow, just to have more impact on them...We judge on this, on distributing. And we always start with small amounts. Because when you launch your products, you don't know how it will work, so you begin with a few volumes, then you see how the consumers are reacting and if the sales are growing, you will buy more volumes.
“In fair trade, you have to be committed to a long term relationship with an organization.”
UNDP Turkey: Is this the way you usually work? Are there contracts you finish in one year-two years, or do you continue?
N.M.: We have never stopped working with a cooperative until now. That's also one of the criteria for fair trade that you have to be committed to a long term relationship with an organization. We always work on a three-year contract, but that's a rolling contract. It means that every year you'll tell them “OK, let's re-negotiate the contract." So they always have three years in front of them. They are able to invest in function of those volumes. So we never stop a relation. All relations we begin have a three-year future at least.
UNDP Turkey: Is there a special model? For example, do you work with a production company, or cooperatives? And if there are no cooperatives, how do you handle it?
N.M.: We have all different kinds of cases. We always need to have a collective structure, for different reasons. The first reason is that we are paying on two levels for price. The minimum price which is the price we want the producer to be paid and we add what we call the “fair trade premium" which is paid to the collective group to finance collective projects. It might be an association, a cooperative, a village committee.
The objective is to transfer most of the added value to the co-ops, to make them do the whole production. So we usually begin with a bulk import. We find a solution in France to package it, to design it. And then we transfer some of the added value progressively. On some products such as rice, spices, or tea, everything is made in the cooperatives: the raw material, the quality process, the packaging, the printing... But we always make the design. The design is made by computer in Paris. We send them the design, then they will work with a printer service provider. They print and stick it on the packages.
UNDP Turkey: Until you arrange this with the local people, do you do it yourselves?
N.M.: It's really case by case. Usually at the beginning of the relationship, we import by bulk and then progressivelly we transfer all the process. Let's take the example of the grapes here. The cooperatives we visited are not able to package for the moment. They don't have the machines for that. So we will import by bulk and we'll find a solution in France, no problem. But next year, maybe we can find a company here that will be able to do that, and we'll contract the company to make that for us. So we'll transfer a part of the added value in Turkey which is already a good thing. And then through volumes, through money invested in the cooperatives, some day they will get enough cash to invest in some packing machines, which is very simple for dried fruits. You just have vacuum machines. So you will transfer from the Turkish company to the co-op and they will do everything, and we'll send them the design, they will contact a printer in Gaziantep, they will print stickers and stick them manually on every bag, and put them in card boxes and export them to France.
“A collective structure that gathers all the products, and deals with us in trading is needed”.
UNDP Turkey: Are you approachable by individual producers?
N.M.: We always work with a collective form. For different reasons: first of all, it's too hard for us to say “OK, I'll buy 30 kg from you, 20 from you, 20 from you." It's like impossible, for us to work with thousands and thousands of producers. We have to have a focal point which is the cooperative. So for pragmatical reasons we need to have a collective structure that gathers all the products and that would be the structure that is dealing with us in the trading relationship. And also, we always work with a collective group, with co-ops because it's important for us that the producer is not only selling the product but he's also the owner of an organization that might give him some other skills that help him manage (the group manager company), the quality process, manage the packaging. It's very important to have a quality structure, just to gather all the producers around a common project. That's also a part of the deal, so we are not reachable by one producer saying “I have one hundred kilos of this product"; that's not possible.
UNDP Turkey: You mentioned social projects by the cooperatives. What kind of projects are you talking about here?
N.M.: Social projects are financed by the premiums the cooperatives are getting. These have to be dedicated to collective projects. It's not always social projects. It's gradual. Usually at the beginning it's more about operational projects, to have more skills or about the process in the co-ops. They invest in the machines to be able to get more of the process in the co-ops. Then, when they have that, they usually invest in schools, in alphabetization programme, you can have all that kind of thing... Or you can also invest premium in environmental projects. You can use it for paying for organic certification, or for a re-plantation programme, etc. You can use it in plenty of w
Following UNDP's recent survey, which revealed Turkish commercial banks' interest in microfinance, another research, again commissioned by the UNDP indicated that there are more than 2 million potential customers, who can benefit from bank saving products and at least 1.5 million households are interested in microcredit from commercial banks under suitable conditions in Turkey.
The UNDP study has been conducted in four regions (West, Southeast, Northeast and Central Anatolia) of Turkey among 388 households. The sample is statistically significant (allowing for a 5% error margin), taking into account the fact that 36% (5.7 million households) of the Turkish population is considered economically vulnerable.
The study reveals that the median savings potential per household is 90 YTL per month. 21% of the target group (i.e. 1,197,000 households) already have a bank savings account. Another 24% (i.e. almost 1.4 million households) would like to save money in a bank if suitable products would be offered. Hence commercial banks could reach out to more than 2,5 million households in the short run. The key message for banks is: start with savings services; link savings to microcredit options and lend to households rather than just to micro-enterprises.
The other key findings and recommendations of this study are:
UNDP, upon the announcement of 2005 by the United Nations as the Microfinance Year, has been carrying out a project for the last one year in order for microfinance to become more widespread in Turkey. The surveys have been conducted in the framework of this project. There has been no information on the demand and supply sides of microfinance.
This year, the theme of WED was “Deserts and Desertification" and UN's slogan was “Don't Desert Drylands!", which occupy more than 40% of Earth's land area and are home to more than 2 billion people.
The main celebrations of WED 2006 were held in the City of Algiers, Algeria, drawing attention to the importance of caring for the world's vast areas of arid land. In his message on 5 June, 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reminded the world that “Across the planet, poverty, unsustainable land management and climate change are turning drylands into deserts, and desertification in turn exacerbates and leads to poverty”. Annan added, “There is also mounting evidence that dryland degradation and competition over increasingly scarce resources can bring communities into conflict... Desertification is hard to reverse, but it can be prevented. Protecting and restoring drylands will not only relieve the growing burden on the world's urban areas, it will contribute to a more peaceful and secure world.”
Celebrations
World Environment Day is a people's event celebrated with colourful activities, including street rallies, bicycle parades, green concerts, essays and poster competitions in schools, tree planting, recycling and clean-up campaigns.
WED was also celebrated in Turkey on 5 June. Part of the Day's activities took place at “Sincan Wonderland” in the town of Sincan, near Ankara, under the coordination of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and UNDP. Outdoor activities such as children's folk dancing and gymnastics performances, clown shows and public concerts created a lot of fun. Primary school children also contributed their part to the World Environment Day by producing slogans and paintings on environmental protection and climate change, in a competition organized by the Ministry and the UNDP within the context of Global Environment Facility programme. 280 primary schools in Ankara province participated in the competition. The jury, formed by the representatives from both the Ministry and UNDP, chose 10 best slogans and awarded the students with prizes. Among the gifts presented to the children by Katalin Zaim, UNDP's Environment and Sustainable Development Programme Director, and Bünyamin Karaca, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry were digital cameras, DVD players, MP3 players and electronic dictionaries. Some of the award-winning slogans were:
The official launch of the campaign took place on 4 June, 2006 at CNN Türk, one of the main media sponsors of the campaign. CNN Türk's broadcasts called for public donations through SMS on cell phones; and at the end of the day, more than 50,000 YTL was raised, which seems sufficient to save the last 80 members of Urfa's Gazelle species. However, a total of nearly 2 million YTL is yet needed to be able to save Turkey's 198 endangered fauna species and 2,746 flora species... During the campaign launch, the profits from an internet auction of paintings by 18 famous Turkish artists also supported the fund.
The Nature Fund was established by the Dutch Government and the British and Dutch partners of BirdLife International, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Vogelbescherming Nederlands.
Among the 10 prioritised projects are the Conservation of Threatened Orchid Species in Southern Turkey, the Rediscovery of the Anatolian Leopard, the Conservation of Sultansazlığı Wetlands, the Preservation of the Last Remaining Demoiselle Cranes and the Globally Threatened Great Bustards.
“We are very pleased to launch Turkey's National Fund, one of the first national initiatives dedicated to prevent biodiversity decline”, said Güven Eken, Director General of Doğa Derneği. “Turkey is one of the most biodiversity-rich countries in the world and has a global responsibility for the prevention of species' extinction -a united goal of the contracting parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the European Union. We expect that this partnership will initiate larger support from the private sector for biodiversity conservation.”
UNDP Turkey's Deputy Representative Sarah Poole said, “As UNDP, we are very happy to be involved in this campaign, since we give great importance to sustainable development and protection of biodiversity. UNDP supports the sustainable management of agriculture, fisheries, forests and energy, and a pro-poor approach to the conservation of protected areas, biotechnology and the development of viable, new markets for ecosystem services. We invite the public and espacially the private sector to join us in this cause.”
For more information:
Esra Basak
Campaign Officer Doga Dernegi
Tel: +90 555 477 26 66
Fax: +90 312 448 02 58
World Environment Day (WED) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Another resolution, adopted by the General Assembly the same day, led to the creation of UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme.
What is UNEP?
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is an organ of UN which provides leadership and encourages partnerships in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
Established in 1991, GEF helps developing countries fund projects that protect the global environment. GEF funds support works in six priority areas:
• Frameworks and Strategies for Sustainable Development
• Water Governance
• Sustainable Energy
• Sustainable Land Management
• Biodiversity
• Chemicals Management
UNDP Turkey works closely with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, General Directorate of Electrical Power Resources Survey & Development Administration, Ministry of Transport, State Planning Organization and several Municipalities to integrate environmental concerns into development policies and programmes.
UNDP Turkey is also an implementing agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Under this funding umbrella, UNDP Turkey supported and continues to support the development of medium and large scale projects in the strategic focal areas of GEF, such as Climate Change, Biodiversity, Land Degradation, International Waters, Enabling Activities, Capacity Building and Adaptations to Climate Change. In recent years, several GEF projects were initiated. UNDP Turkey also plays the implementing and supporting role to the GEF Regional Projects, namely the “Programme of Capacity Building for the Removal of Barriers to the Cost-Effective Development and Implementation of Energy Efficiency Standards and Labelling in EU Candidate Countries” and the “Black Sea Ecosystems Recovery Project, Phase II”.
The GEF Country Dialogue Workshop, held between 21-23 June 2006 in Ankara, also provided the opportunity to the national partners to learn more about the GEF-supported projects and funding mechanisms.
UNDP Turkey, in collaboration with EU and State Planning Organization, is at the initiation phase of the project on “Integration of Sustainable Development into Sectoral Policies”. The overall aim of this project is to enable Turkey to integrate sustainable development principles into national and local/regional development planning and implementation, both at the macro-economic and sectoral levels, as most explicitly stated in the Implementation Plan of the WSSD and the Sixth Environmental Action Plan of the EU.
The GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) is an integral part of Global Environment Facility (GEF), whose mission is “to make the connection between local and global environmental challenges and between national and international resources”. SGP is a world-wide programme administrated by UNDP, providing grants to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for activities that address global problems related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, protection of international waters, as well as mitigation of land degradation and climate change. It is based on the presumption that global environmental problems can be solved by local communities, who, with small amounts of funding (up to USD 50,000) can take steps to make a significant impact on the condition of the environment and their sustainable livelihood. SGP has been run by the UNDP Turkey office since 1993 on a decentralised basis, and has disbursed small grants worth about USD 2 million to over 100 projects throughout Turkey.
For more information on specific UNDP Turkey activities relating to Energy and the Environment, please refer to the links provided below:
Sarah Poole, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP, at the launch, said that UNDP looks at women's rights in different aspects such as familial, cultural, educational, political and social, and runs both international and local projects for the participation of women in politics. Giving examples of UNDP's relevant international projects, Poole explained that gender equality is much higher in Turkey than in some other countries; however there was still much to do to entitle women's political rights, therefore this workshop was very important.
A member of the Local Politics Working Group, Yıldız Tokman gave a presentation at the workshop on ‘Local Policies on the Way to Gender Equality', highlighting women's under-representation in politics in Turkey, and summarized KA-DER's activities to change this fact. Tokman said the Group's goal is to set up a framework to create discussions through local policies on local gender inequities and its solutions. She expressed the situation in figures: women are represented by % 2 in city councils and provincial councils which are elected decision-making organs of local administrations. Only 18 (% 0,6) out of 3234 mayors are women, while in EU member countries 1 out of 5 elected local administrators is woman.
After the presentation, discussions took place on the preliminary policy report on ‘Local Policies on the Way to Gender Equality'.
The workshop was organised by UNDP, KA-DER Ankara Local Politics Working Group, and KAGIDER Women's Fund.
UNDP conducts two major projects on women's rights issues in Turkey. 'CEDAW Follow Up Project', carried out within the framework of ‘Women's Integration in Development' programme, aims to promote women's empowerment and gender mainstreaming in Turkey. While Turkish women highly participate in professions and were granted the vote in the 1930s, and Turkey is apparently the only Muslim country with equal rights of inheritance and divorce for both sexes, women still face significant inequalities in property ownership, literacy ratio, political representation and visibility, especially in the less developed parts of the country. Turkey ratified the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) in 1986. However, there are still significant violations of women's human rights. The 'CEDAW Follow Up' project started in 2005 with a budget of $ 30,000. UNDP's main partner in this project is ‘Uçan Süpürge' (the Flying Broom) Women's Organization.
The main objective of the second, 'Women in Politics' project is to increase the number of women in the Turkish Parliament. The project promotes women's participation in politics, as a means to deepening democratic practice and strengthen the visibility of gender in the period leading to the 2007 general elections in Turkey. UNDP's project has a budget of $ 120,000, and its major partner is the Association of Supporting and Training Women Candidates (KA-DER). UNDP also partners with the broader community of women's activists, including the women's branches of the leading political parties.
The first workshop was organized in Ankara on 8-9 June for 34 members from 24 NGOs. The participating NGOs are working in the fields of human rights, legal issues and service-delivery for IDPs. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) attended the workshop as observer. Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation's working group on IDPs was also represented at the workshop and shared insights on the recent developments in national IDP response. Conducted by the facilitation of two trainers from the Norwegian Refugee Council/Internally Displaced Monitoring Center (NRC/IDMC), namely Christophe Beau and Kim Mancini, the training covered the following topics:
The next step in this programme will be a ‘training of trainers workshop', following the preparation of a one-day training module on IDP protection.
The training seminars held in Mersin during 15-16 June and 19-20 June were organized for Damage Assessment Commissions. 125 commission members from 19 provinces in South, Southeast and Northeast Turkey attended these seminars. Mersin Governor Hüseyin Aksoy made the opening speech, and representing the Ministry of the Interior, Deputy-General Director Vasip Şahin, Branch Director from the Provincial Administration General Directorate Ali Fidan, and Abdurrahman Savaş from the Strategy Development Board also participated as speakers.
Rhodri Williams from the Brookings Institute and Peter van Auweraert from International Organisation for Migration were the international resource persons who provided an analysis of different global experiences regarding compensation. Kerem Altıparmak from Ankara University's Political Science Faculty also participated at the seminars to draw conclusions. UNDP Turkey and UNHCR attended the seminar as observers.
Global experience on internal displacement highlights that ensuring a voice for civil society and active engagement by NGOs in IDP return and integration processes is vital for rights-based durable solutions to the problems of IDPs. The UNDP's work on supporting the development of a national IDP response program is therefore equally focused on capacity building for the civil society and on supporting platforms for the voice of civil society to impact government policies.
Presentations at the Training Programme for the Members of Damage Assessment Commissions – June 2006
· Ali Fidan - Reparation of Damages Arising From Terror and Fight Against Terror
· Peter Van der Auweraert - Operational Challenges in Large-Scale Reparation Programmes
· Rhodri C. Williams - IDP Joint Training Program for Commission Members
The joint project was announced in Vienna at a conference on responsible investing in Eastern Europe and the CIS organized by UNDP, Austrian Development Cooperation and UNIDO.
The five-year partnership between RBEC and the Coca-Cola Company's Europe and Middle East Division will initially focus on projects in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Romania and Croatia to improve rural communities' access to safe drinking water, as well as on industrial water use along the Danube River and providing advocacy on water issues in the region.
The partnership illustrates just one of the many ways the private sector can be involved in finding solutions to public issues, said Kalman Mizsei, UN Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director for UNDP's Bureau for Europe and the CIS, at the press conference in Vienna.
"Partnership with the private sector is essential as a lot of the skills and human capacity needed to solve public problems actually sit in the private sector and in private enterprises," said Mizsei. "Without the private sector involved, we cannot hope to solve these problems of public concern."
Water resources are critical for economic development in the region, for consumption, sanitation, irrigation, industrial use, transportation, fishing and aquaculture and recreation. But many aquatic ecosystems in Europe and the CIS have suffered serious degradation or are under threat -from pollution, over-harvesting of surface and groundwater, invasive species, and habitat loss- and achieving a balance between the water demands of communities and the needs of the aquatic ecosystems on which they depend remains a key challenge.
Vienna Forum: Responsible business is good business
Corporate social responsibility is more than just philanthropy - it makes clear commercial sense, heard delegates at a UNDP sponsored conference on responsible investing in Southeast Europe, the EU member states and the CIS.
Some 200 representatives from the private sector and the international development community met in Vienna on 19 June for a two-day meeting to explore ways of bringing together the international development agenda and business opportunities in the region.
The conference is organized by the Austrian Development Cooperation, UNDP, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in association with the UN Global Compact Office, the Government of Belgium, respACT Austria, the US Chamber of Commerce - Business Civic Leadership Centre and the Centre for International Private Enterprise.
Participants discussed issues of corporate governance and community investment projects, and heard presentations on cross-sectoral partnerships in action.
"Partnership with the private sector is essential as a lot of the skills and human capacity needed to solve public problems actually sit in the private sector and in private enterprises," said Kalman Mizsei. "Without the private sector involved, we cannot hope to solve these problems of public concern."
UNDP is working closely with businesses in the region on a range of development projects. In Kazakhstan, Chevron Texaco, Citibank and UNDP have formed a partnership to promote small- and medium-sized enterprise development. In Poland the oil refinery PKN has teamed up with Levi Strauss, the local government and UNDP in order to fund projects promoting sustainable development. And Polish Telecom is promoting the use of Internet in disadvantaged rural communities together with UNDP.
As of June 2006, 73 Turkish companies have joined GC. Thus, the creation of a local network in Turkey, which would act as a platform whereby the members would get to communicate with each other and contribute to the proper functioning of the Compact, became inevitable.
The members of the Committee were chosen among the committed members and supporters of the Global Compact from the private sector, NGOs, trade union confederations, related State Organs, and UN Agencies. The first meeting was realized with the participation of Koç Holding, Aviva Insurance, Coca-Cola Turkey, Corporate Social Responsibility Association, Turkish Society for Quality (KAL-DER), Turkish Confederation of Employer Associations (TİSK), the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (TÜRK-İŞ), UNIDO and UNDP. It was chaired by Kalman Mizsei, Assistant Administrator of UN Secretary General and UNDP Regional Director for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
At the Committee meeting, many suggestions and ideas were produced concerning the activities of the national Global Compact Network in Turkey. The main outcome of the meeting was the formation of a consensus among the Committee Members for an oversight mechanism for the GC Network in Turkey, which should be provided by the members of the network. It was also decided that the Steering Committee will assign a technical level task force for the Global Compact, which will prioritize the strategic intervention areas. The task force will also be responsible for the development of a strategy for the sustainability of the GC network activities in Turkey .
How to join Global Compact?
Global Compact engagement procedure is very simple. The only thing you should do is to send a letter to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, stating the compliance with the Global Compact principles.