CIBJO President addresses United Nations' Private Sector Focal Points Meeting

In his address at the ongoing United Nations' Private Sector Focal Points Meeting, CIBJO President Dr. Gaetano Cavalieri spoke of the global jewellery industry’s commitment in working with the UN and its agencies in advancing the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The meeting is being held today and tomorrow in Vienna, Austria. It is co-hosted by the UN Global Compact, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The Meeting is focused on enhancing collaboration between the United Nations and the private sector, creating what the UN refers to as "transformational relationships" that advance humanitarian and development objectives. It is being attended by senior UN officials, a number of executives from major business corporations from across the globe.

Dr. Cavalieri is representing the jewellery sector. He spoke of the specific nature of the jewellery business, the long chain of distribution which is made up predominantly by smaller companies (more than 90 percent of workers employed in the chain from mining to retail are employed by micro- and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). And to successfully engage the jewellery sector, he mentioned that the United Nations bodies need to create institutional partnerships with umbrella organisations like CIBJO, hence enabling the creation of collaborative projects at the local level.

Dr. Cavalieri was joined at the Meeting by Jocelyn Fenard, a Senior Specialist in CSR and sustainability with the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR), who today is also General Manager of Antwerp-ITCCO (International Training Centre for Corporate Opportunities).

Dr. Cavalieri further added that “The jewellery sector is firmly committed to doing the right thing, and in our case it involves assisting our stakeholders and the communities in which they live to meet their development needs," Dr. Cavalieri said. "We face a series of challenges that are specific to our business, not only because of the nature of the product that we deal with, but also because of our structure. With that in mind, we are keen to work closely with the United Nations in developing methods and programmes that will lead to the fruition of the Millennium Development Goals."