26 March 2008. Kyiv - The first
“Developing Business Partnerships for CSR” Forum has been organized today in
“Opera” hotel in Kyiv by the United Nations office in Ukraine and BEST
analytical center with the support of System Capital Management and Konrad
Adenauer Foundation. The Forum gave a floor to discussion of the importance of
establishing partnerships between businesses for the successful implementation
of socially responsible strategies .
The Forum was attended by the UN
Coordination specialist in Ukraine, Ms. Ruken Tekes Calikusu, Deputy of
Verhovna Rada, Honourable Member of Research Centre “BEST” Ms. Iryna Akimova,
Director of International and Investor Relations of “System Capital Management”
Mr. Jock Mendoza-Wilson, director of Ukraine programme and Kiev office of
“Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung” Mr. Nico Lange as well as by senior Ukrainian and
international experts in corporate social responsibility. The Forum gathered
more than 100 participants of the Ukrainian business and media. The Forum proved that today companies are
increasingly finding that advancing broader societal objectives is a necessary
step to ensure the growth and stability of their own business operations and
effective partnerships between businesses can enhance CSR through overcoming
challenges that are too difficult or complex for one company to address alone.
In course of the first plenary session the models of
cooperation between companies on implementing CSR, including within sectors,
competitors-to-competitors, and mechanisms of business partnership in CSR
between companies of different sizes have been discussed. Among the presenters
that took part in this session were Ms. Elena Korf, programme manager of the
International Business Leaders Forum (Great Britain), Ms. Olga Rudneva,
director of Elena Franchuk “ANTIAIDS” Foundation, Ms. Oksana Rudiuk, head of public relations
department, LCC “Astelit”, who spoke on behalf of mobile operators’ business
coalition combating human trafficking in partnership with IOM. Ms. Anna Derevyanko, executive director of
the European Business Association and Mr. Per Fischer, head of financial
institutions, senior Vice President and Head of Central and Eastern Europe,
CIS, Baltic Ñommerzbank shared their opinions of cooperation and successful
business partnerships in CSR.
The main focus of the second plenary session was the
discussion of existing practices and opportunities for multinational businesses
and large Ukrainian companies to promote CSR along their supply and value
chains. The expert opinion on this subject was presented by Ms. Chabuka Barnes,
product and service manager of CSR Europe, Belgium. In his address to the
participant of the Forum Mr. Klaus Steilmann, Honourable Consul of Ukraine in
Germany emphasized the necessity of support to local economy from the global
participants of the markets. The representatives of multinational companies Ms.
Olesya Zhulynska, Public Affairs Manager of Coca-Cola Ukraine and Ms. Tetiana
Babenko, PR manager of Metro Ukraine shared with the audience their experiences
of the CSR strategies implementation in their day-to-day business practice.
As the result of Forum’s work the participants agreed
that partnerships make CSR efforts more effective by combining resources and
competencies in innovative ways and collaboration can enable companies and
organizations to better achieve their own individual objectives through
leveraging, combining and capitalizing on complementary strengths and
capabilities. The event was followed by business networking lunch enabling all
participants and key-note speakers to communicate informally.
26.03.08
