28.11.2007

Kyiv

Corporate Social Responsibility in Ukraine and Kazakhstan discussed at the meetings with Ukrainian journalists and NGOs in Kyiv

On November 26-27, 2007 Ukrainian Global Compact Network office in Kyiv hosted a study tour of Kazakhstan delegation of journalists that won the contest organized by UNDP Kazakhstan on the best article on CSR topic accompanied by the representatives of socially responsible Kazakhstan businesses and civil society organizations. This tour initiated by UNDP Kazakhstan was an outcome event of the International Media Forum on CSR organized by UN in Ukraine on July 12-13, 2007 in Kyiv.

Click here to download the list of the Kazakhstan participants

The program of the two-day visit was very intense and featured a number of meetings with different Ukrainian CSR stakeholders as well as the meetings with the Global Compact support team in Ukraine on the GC facilitation, development, communications, network management and partnership projects

On Monday, November 26, «President Hotel «Kyivsky» hosted a media discussion with the Ukrainian journalists aimed at the topic of media and CSR interaction of Ukraine. The event was organized by UN Global Compact team and Expert Ukraine and was attended by the leading media representatives as well as the GC signatory-media. The facilitator of the event was Mr. Oleg Strelnikov, corporate relations and development director of «Expert Ukraine». He also conducted a presentation about the experience of «Expert Ukraine» publishing house in promoting the topic of CSR in Ukraine for the last several years.

A welcoming address on behalf of Ukrainian journalists was delivered by Mr. Iskander Hisamov, Editor-in-Chief of «Expert Ukraine» magazine. He talked about the important role that media plays in corporate social responsibility development. “It takes a lot of efforts and skills for a journalist to highlight CSR news as an interesting topic for the readers”, stressed Mr. Hisamov.

The GC signatory media holding “Edipresse Ukraine” shared their experience of Ukrainian media business in development project implementation on the example of the Charity Fund “Edinstvennaya”. The speech was delivered by Ms. Lusine Badalyan of Head of project “Edinstvennaya” and Ms. Alina Sevastyuk, PR Director of “Edipresse Ukraine”.

Mr. Sergey Chekalov, leader of all-Ukrainian rating program «Gvardiya» (an affiliate of «Galitsky Kontrakty» media holding) shared with the audience his thoughts about how ratings of socially responsible companies in Ukraine can become an effective way of communications between socially responsible businesses and public.

The presentations were followed up by a lively discussion between Ukrainian and Kazakhstan journalists.
Click here to download the agenda of the meeting and the list of participants.

Later in the afternoon a round table discussion on “NGOs and corporate social responsibility: do they need each other?” topic was conducted at the UN House in Kyiv.

The event was organized by the Centre for Corporate Citizenship with the support of UN Global Compact team and gathered more than 10 leading Ukrainian NGOs dealing with different aspects of CSR issues. The main objectives of this meeting were to collectively discuss and to define the most successful cooperation models between NGOs and business, to agree on the most and the least popular roles of NGOs in Ukraine and Kazakhstan and to list the most important out of missed opportunities. The outcome document of the meeting will be shortly prepared by the Centre for Corporate Citizenship and soon will be available online.

View the agenda of the meeting and the profiles of the participating organizations.

Also, as a part of study tour agenda a meeting within the framework of the “Business talks GC to Business” initiative at NADRA Bank was conducted on November, 27.