CIBJO organises conference at UN headquarters

CIBJO organised a conference gathering industry leaders, senior United Nations officials and representatives of UN-affiliated organisations, to discuss the commitment of the jewellery and gemstone business in facilitating sustainable development in countries and regions where it is active. The conference was held in the Delegates Dining Room at the United Nations headquarters in New York, in honour of a special joint session of the UN General Assembly and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). CIBJO has been the only representative of the gem and jewellery sector at the ECOSOC, with special consultative status since 2006. The session had been called to discuss the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals programme. Dr. Hanifa Mezoui, a senior UN Senior Advisor on Civil Society coordinated the event and Dr. Francois Loriot, an MDG specialist and Vice President of the Bar Association for Inter-Governmental Organisations was the moderator.

CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri addressed the gathering brining to light the responsibility of the industry not only to protect the ‘chain of distribution and consumer confidence’ but also towards ‘fulfilling our social and economic commitment to our stakeholders and the communities in which they live’. He further reiterated that while being conscious ‘in implementing responsible practices, we also need to consider how we have contributed to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals post 2015.’

Dr. Andrei Abramov, chief of ECOSOC's NGO section, spoke of the shift in the United Nation's attitude toward the business sector, from suspicion to an appreciation of it having operational and financial capacity to initiate and implement sustainable development programs, in a way that the public sector sometimes does not.

Melissa Powell, Head of Strategy & Partnerships and Business for Peace at the UN Global Compact Office highlighted Global Compact's Business for Peace programme, which was identified in Forbes as one of the five areas defining the future of CSR. Hayley Henning, Executive Director of the Tanzanite Foundation, described the various programmes initiated by the organisation in Tanzania, including the establishment of schools, an orphanage and economic empowerment programmes for Masai women living in the gemstone mining areas. An online system developed in cooperation with CIBJO, which will enable jewellery businesses to incorporate social responsibility management methods without having to employ expensive outside advisors, was introduced by professors Donald Fever and Benedict Sheehy of the Branded Trust Foundation. The system, which includes supply chain monitoring and evaluates a company's investment in social and sustainable development according to the Millennium Development Goals, will be made available for the jewellery and gemstone industry over the course of the coming year.

A cooperation agreement, entitled "Global Partnership for Development" was signed by CIBJO's President, Dr. Cavalieri, and Jean-Pierre Diserens, Secretary General of the Council of Independent Financial Advisors (CIFA). It calls for creating a joint programme to educate their respective members about the United Nation's Post-2015 Development Agenda.