PROMOTING AND MONITORING THE UN GLOBAL COMPACT

The Global Compact is an international initiative directed at businesses proposed by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in 1999, which seeks to implement ten principles of conduct and action in matters of human rights, employment, the environment, and the fight against corruption.

In order to ensure that the fulfilment of the commitments entered into by Spanish companies who have signed up to the Global Compact is monitored, and to encourage other companies to sign up to the Compact, in 2001 the Rafael del Pino Foundation sponsored the organisation of a lecture to present the Global Compact formally in Spain, a concert at Madrid’s Royal Theatre in honour of the Secretary General, and the creation of an organisational structure to perform the monitoring.

The consolidation of the Global Compact in Spain was demonstrated by the success of the Workshop for Global Compact Signatory Companies and Entities in Spain held on 22 October 2003, and the setting up of the Spanish Association for the Global Compact (ASEPAM), now called the Spanish Global Compact Network, the honorary chairman of which was Rafael del Pino y Moreno, the Founder of the Rafael del Pino Foundation.

Since then, the number of signatories of the UN Global Compact in Spain has continued to rise steadily and the Spanish Global Compact Network is currently one of the strongest Global Compact networks in the world, with seven hundred companies signed up, as was disclosed at the presentation of the Global Compact Progress Reports held at the Rafael del Pino Foundation on 19 February 2008, which was attended by Juan José Barrera, Director General for Social Economy, Self-Employment and the European Social Fund at the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, and Jeff Senne, Communication on Progress Manager at the UN Global Compact Office in New York.

The ongoing commitment of the Rafael del Pino Foundation to the implementation of the ten principles of the Global Compact was once again evidenced by the support it gave to the Spanish Global Compact Network by organising a meeting at the Foundation headquarters between Network members and the present UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, who expressed his support of and commitment to the principles of the Global Compact.

The challenges facing the Spanish Global Compact Network include raising the degree of awareness of the 10 Global Compact principles, both among the signatories, and in society as a whole, and also increasing the number of organisations signing up, paying special attention to small and medium size companies.

The Spanish Global Compact Network also provides guidance to Compact signatories on preparing progress reports. The aim of these voluntary reports is to evaluate annually the commitment of the organisations that have signed up to the Global Compact. The Rafael del Pino Foundation presented its progress reports to the Spanish Global Compact Network in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and they were published by the Network and by the UN, thereby demonstrating the Foundation’s profound involvement in this initiative since its beginnings until the present time.

The Rafael del Pino Foundation remains faithful to its commitment to support, implement and disseminate the principles on which the UN Global Compact is based.