Global Compact meeting on corporate citizenship to open in Moscow on Monday

The first-ever meeting of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Global Compact initiative in the Russian Federation will open in Moscow on Monday, a United Nations spokesman announced today.

The meeting, which is being cosponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Employers as well as dozens of leading Russian and foreign companies, “will aim to establish in Russia a Global Compact Learning Forum and promote public-private partnership projects,” spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York.

The opening of the meeting will be addressed by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette.

The Compact, which was first proposed at the World Economic Forum in January 1999, and formally launched the following year, is an initiative to involve businesses in upgrading environmental, labour and human rights conditions.