In an address to the World Economic Forum on 31 January 1999, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, challenged business leaders to join an international initiative – the Global Compact – that would bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support universal environmental and social principles.

The Global Compact is a purely voluntary initiative with two objectives:

To achieve these objectives, the Global Compact offers facilitation and engagement through several mechanisms: Policy Dialogues, Learning, Country/Regional Networks, and Partnership Projects.

The Global Compact is a network. At its core are the Global Compact Office and six UN agencies:

Local networks are clusters of participants who come together to advance the Global Compact and its principles within a particular geographic context. A Global Compact local network was officially launched in Zambia in March 2003.
Source: Global Compact: About the GC



Additional information

Global Compact website

Global Compact Network in Zambia

The Ten Principles

The Global Compact Brochure (pdf)