As the CEO of a major US corporation, write a note to your senior management, explaining why the corporation should or should not build up a relationship with the United Nations. 11/11/2000 Prepared by Madina Fassassi For Professor Ahmad Kamal Class: International Organizations and Their Management: The United Nations System

Because of successful pressures and the UN financial crisis, the UN and its Secretary General actively seek partnership with the private sector. The involvement of the world�s most representative business group, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), in UN debates and activities, shows us that the time of an anti UN-coalition is over. This note will briefly analyze what are the actual possibilities of partnerships with the UN, and will explain why our company will gain a lot by building up a relationship with the United Nations. Present situation

UNOPS

The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), created in 1995, enable companies and the UN to build partnership around specific projects. At the end of 1999, the value of UNOPS�s total portfolio reached $3.8 billion; annual turnover was close to $800 million; and annual income approached the $50 million mark.  Having broken implementation monopolies, UNOPS now serves over 20 different clients in the UN family. UNOPS is therefore a promising organ.

There are three kinds of partnerships

Policy partnership. Corporations can lend their expertise or scientific knowledge to a UN agency and contribute to the formulation of new policies or programs. Corporations can also participate in working groups on such issues as the international financial architecture. Fund-raising partnership. Since Time Warner Vice-Chairman Ted Turner announced a gift of $1 billion to the UN in 1997, the UN Foundation established by Ted Turner and the UN-based Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP) cooperate to earmark the funds to various UN agencies based on the donor�s advocacy priorities. Operational partnerships. These partnerships are the most complex and diverse.  They involve UN agencies and corporations in the actual design and implementation of projects in some of the 175 countries and territories in which the UN is present.

Our company should seize this opportunity for the following reasons :

First, a partnership with the UN will protect and defend the global interests of the private sector.

1. A partnership with the UN gives the opportunity for the private sector to influence the broad social and economic policymaking of the UN system to minimize regulation, taxation, trade barriers, labor codes and other initiatives. 2. The partnership gives the opportunity to influence the UN�s ideological production (speeches, publications, briefing papers, meeting agendas and so on), so as to confirm private corporate solutions as being the only ones available and practical in today�s world, to frame giant corporations as concerned and helpful world citizens, and to bring an end to the UN system�s advocacy of public (non-market) based solutions.1 3. We could counterbalance and even roll back the influence of NGOs, which are an increasingly dangerous source of criticism and profit-threatening policy alternatives. The relative retreat of the state from its traditional social and economic responsibilities means that we have to face consumers directly without the intermediation of governments.  Using the UN as a stalking-horse would therefore be helpful. Of course, when fighting for the private sector in its all, we will take advantage of this movement to fight also for our own interests and make sure that steps will be in favor of our company. 2

Second, there are also direct benefits from building a parternship with the UN :

4. A partnership with the UN will promote the public image of our company.  We could counterbalance our negative public reputation and make people forget about our harming sales policy, and the damage we are accused to inflict to the environment.3 5. A partnership with the UN will motivate our staff and create an image of an ethic company . Moreover, it will enable us to build a real internal culture around  our staff from all over the world could gather. Conclusion We have to seize quickly the opportunity of a partnership with the UN. It will set up our company in a position very useful for the future.  The partnership should certainly be multi-sectoral : policy, fund raising as well as an operational partnership could be set up. A discussion on this subject will be held and a detailed analysis of our possibility of partnership will be launched.

1. Extracted from  The Road to the Global Compact: Corporate Power And The Battle Over  Global Public Policy at The United Nations by Ellen Paine. October 2000 2. The cooperative relationship between  the computer hardware company Cisco Systems and  UNDP  is a successful partnership for Cisco Systems. 3. As an example, Rhone-Poulenc, faced with intense public criticism for its agro-industrial and genetic research activities, invested $237,000 in the Taj Mahal project. The company generated a great deal of good publicity and benefits for its shareholders that might have been impossible to obtain Sources: ? The Road to the Global Compact: Corporate Power And The Battle Over  Global Public Policy at The United Nations by Ellen Paine. ? www.un.org/partners/business ? Partnering with the Private Sector:  The Return of the UN-Business Partnership By Reinhart Helmke and Sandrine Tesner