Statement to Minnesota Business Leaders

Kofi Annan
Secretary-General of the United Nations

It is a pleasure to be with you today, and to have this opportunity to expand the growing ties between the United Nations and the business community.

A decade ago, such a gathering might not even have taken place. As you know, the private sector was quite wary of the United Nations, suspecting the Organization of lacking a commitment to free enterprise. The United Nations was similarly leery of the corporate world, thinking that it tended to neglect issues such as human rights or the environment.

I think you will agree that a fundamental shift has occurred. The United Nations has a newfound appreciation for the role of the private sector: its expertise, its innovative spirit, its ability to create jobs and wealth. At the same time, business and industry are recognizing the many virtues of the U. N.’s work for political and social stability, for sustainable growth and for a predictable, rule-based environment.

This past February, for example, the International Chamber of Commerce and the United Nations issued a joint statement stressing the potential for cooperation on both policy matters and development ventures. We also launched a joint initiative to promote investment in selected least–developed countries. For my part, I have also addressed the New York Stock Exchange and attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. More and more, the United Nations and business are finding common ground.

It has also been suggested that in my job as Secretary–General, I am very much like a company’s Chief Executive Officer. This is true – up to a point. The Member States can be thought of as a board of directors. The world’s peoples are the shareholders. Development programmes and peacekeeping operations are among our main stock in trade, though we have many other less well-known products.

But the comparison ends there. How would you react if your board members – all 185 of them – micro-managed your business, gave you conflicting instructions and denied you the resources needed to do your job? What would you do as head of a club whose leading members don’t pay their dues? So if you think of me as a chief executive officer, remember that I am as much a juggler and a mendicant.

By now it is well known just how much the United Nations and its specialized agencies have to offer the business community. We prevent conflict where we can, and ease suffering where we cannot. We fight poverty, disease and inequality. We safeguard the global environment, promote democracy and help protect copyrights. Our technical standard-setting in areas such as aviation, shipping, and telecommunication provides the global system’s "soft infrastructure" – the very foundation for international transactions.

For business, this translates into reduced risk, new markets and new opportunities for global production, trade and investment. In short, we contribute quietly but significantly to the smooth functioning of the global economy. We help create the conditions business needs to succeed.

As globalization advances, it is increasingly clear that interdependence is a two-way process. What happens in developing countries affects the developed nations, and vice versa. Moreover, there are winners and losers; victims and beneficiaries; those who become newly affluent and others who remain mired in poverty. So we are also recognizing that the global marketplace has inherent shortcomings and contradictions; and that it can only work effectively if it is able to promote both prosperity and justice.

This is where the United Nations makes another important contribution – indeed one of its most valuable: as a proponent of universal values. Every society, from Asia to the Americas, is the product of values, of shared bonds and ideals. Global society must also work from shared norms and objectives. Fortunately, the basis of that common understanding already exists: it is found in the U. N. Charter.

Freedom and the peaceful resolution of disputes; social progress and better standards of living, equality, tolerance and dignity; these are the universal values set out in the Charter. They are values of time-tested legitimacy; they define the true human interest. As such they are a pillar of the global economy, because markets also reflect values. Markets do not function in a vacuum; they arise from a framework of rules and laws, and they respond to signals set by Governments and other institutions. They are human creations.

Indeed, without rules governing property rights and contracts; without confidence based on laws; without an overall sense of direction and a fair degree of equity and transparency, there could be no well-functioning markets, domestic or global. The U. N. system provides such a global framework: an agreed set of standards and objectives that enjoy world-wide acceptance, and within which markets are able to function.

I know that values are very much on your minds as well. I know that the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility and the Caux Round Table have long focused on developing principles for business behavior around the world.

Business is a major actor in building bridges between nations and people. The liberalization of markets and the globalization of communications have led formerly closed societies into the global economy. The operations of many transnational corporations have increasingly widespread effects.

But as the global reach of business expands, so do its responsibilities. You are involved in reducing social and economic threats to international peace and stability. You are key agents for technology transfer and clean environmental practices. In many ways, the business of business today can be said to be much more than business.

In addition, just as many governments are being pushed by their people into greater transparency, openness and accountability, businesses are being pushed to do likewise. People affected by the actions of business and industry are seeking to have their voices heard about social, environmental and other concerns.

The United Nations, with its universal membership and broad mandate, is uniquely placed to facilitate this process. Only two weeks ago, business representatives joined Governments, trade unions, environmental groups and other "stakeholders" for dialogue on the ongoing follow-up to the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro six years ago. Such contacts are being established through the U. N. system, covering issues such as labour standards and human rights.

Over the past sixteen months, the United Nations has undertaken the most wide-ranging reform in its history. My reform plan – my "quiet revolution" – stems from my conviction that the United Nations, freed from the constraints of the Cold War, can for the first time act to its full potential.

The General Assembly has adopted major aspects of the reform plan and is discussing further far-reaching measures. The net result is that the United Nations today is in fundamental respects a new institution. Not least, we are in a stronger position to work with business and industry. So I look forward to more gatherings such as this one – but more importantly, I am eager for there to be more concrete partnerships between us, at Headquarters and in the field.

Together, we continue to face old foes such as hunger, disease and poverty. We confront a range of new threats such as pollution, drugs, terrorism and organized crime, which I call "problems without passports." Whether old or new, these and other problems cannot be addressed by any single nation on its own, nor by governments or business acting on their own. Ours is an era of internationalism, and of partnerships. In today’s world, we depend on each other.

The business of the United Nations involves the businesses of the world. I need you, leaders and innovators in your fields, to spread this message: to your colleagues, to your customers, to your elected representative. Your voices can be especially influential among those who might still be looking inward. I encourage you to participate in our activities and help shape the debate. Let us, together, advance our common goals. Thank you.

Kofi Annan is the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. He has spent more than 30 years with the U.N. This speech was given at a Business Leaders Breakfast co-sponsored by the Minnesota Business Partnership, the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility and the Caux Round Table on May 18, 1998.

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