Sri Lanka hosts UN Global Compact’s Exchange program

Global Compact Network Ceylon hosted the United Nations Global Compact’s Local Networks Exchange program in Sri Lanka recently. Organised jointly with the UN Global Compact Office in New York, the four-day event convened Global Compact officials and representatives of local networks from Sri Lanka, India, Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The Global Compact, based on a commitment to ten universally accepted principles, is a practical framework for the development, implementation, and disclosure of sustainability policies and practices, offering participants a wide spectrum of work streams, management tools and resources, all designed to help advance sustainable business models and markets. With over 10,000 corporate participants and other stakeholders from over 130 countries, it is the largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative in the world.

Local networks are clusters of participants who come together to advance the United Nations Global Compact and its principles within a particular geographic context. Local Networks perform increasingly important roles in rooting the Global Compact within different national, cultural and language contexts, facilitating the progress of companies with respect to sustainability, and creating opportunities for multi-stakeholder engagement.

The exchange program seeks to foster collaboration among local networks by providing an opportunity to share experiences and identify best practices across regional boundaries. Contact persons from various networks gather at a particular network and participate in practical working sessions, to develop an in-depth analysis of the challenges and opportunities associated with local network operation.

Topics featured during the program in Sri Lanka included management of local networks, local network structure and governance model, sustainability of local networks, knowledge sharing system, communication on progress training, management tool kit, collaboration mechanisms between other local networks, social platform and communication, and collective and policy dialogues.