Corporate accountability and responsibility are essential to create jobs and attract foreign direct investment to the Mena region, officials said.
Corporate accountability is at the heart of the Pearl Initiative, a non-profit, business-to-business organisation operating in the Middle East to spread transparency.
“Trust helps companies generate value and resilience and enables them to grow. Growing companies create more jobs, stimulate economic activity and in return provide new opportunities for entrepreneurs,” said Badr Jafar, the founder of the Pearl Initiative, at a conference in Dubai. “These professionals and new business owners gain the skills necessary and the markets that they need to create industry and jobs of the future, and all of this stimulates the economy as an ethical transparent place in which to do business, creating a nucleus for foreign investment.”
Employment in the GCC is a key issue. According to the IMF, the labour participation of GCC citizens is low, at 52 per cent for men and 25 per cent for women.
The labour force could grow between 3 to 4 per cent a year, leading to an additional 1.2 million to 1.6 million Gulf nationals coming into the labour market by 2019, the IMF says. These jobs should be created by strong businesses, Mr Jafar said.
Yesterday’s keynote speaker was Reem Al Hashimi, Minister of State, who emphasised the importance of accountability in creating good conditions for job creation.
The Pearl Initiative is working with the UN Global Impact, a policy initiative for businesses to align their operations with principles relating to human rights, labour, environment and fighting corruption.
“If a company has solid commitment and strong leadership and has transparency and accountability, then on average the company is better positioned to mitigate risk and seize on opportunities,” said Georg Kell, the executive director of the UN Global Compact.
Governments should play a role in enforcing corporate accountability and businesses should not be left to their own devices, officials said.
“We do need regulation and sound government frameworks,” said Mark Moody-Stuart, the chairman of the Foundation for the UN Global Compact.
“It is not good enough simply in our company to make sure that we have good work conditions, that we treat workers from other countries well, but we need to be supportive of governments putting in place frameworks that ensure that happens and that enforce those frameworks.”
dalsaadi@thenational.ae
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