Corporate Social Responsibility Seminar to be Held in Yerevan

The British Council, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, United Nations Global Compact and American Chamber of Commerce are organizing a seminar entitled Corporate Social Responsibility: a New Role for Businesses. The seminar is being organized with additional support from KPMG Armenia CJSC. 

The seminar will be held on June 30 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Marriott Armenia hotel in Yerevan. 

Nerses Yeritisyan, the Minister of Economy, will make opening remarks. The seminar will be led by two experts from the United Kingdom, Mallen Baker of Business Respect and Birgit Errath from the International Business Leaders Forum. Mr. Baker is currently responsible for developing BITC's approach to marketplace issues. He initiated the Business Impact Review Group - the group of 20 companies who developed a common approach to CSR reporting. Mr. Baker is also the editor of the email newsletter on CSR 'Business Respect' and a regular columnist with Ethical Corporation. Ms. Errath leads the UN Global Compact’s program to support implementation of the 10th principle against corruption and coordinates Global Compact network activities in South-East Asia. She has a degree in international business administration and specialization on financial markets and ran privatization projects for governments and companies in Central and Eastern Europe at Raiffeisen Investment Bank.

The experts will lead similar events in Tbilisi on July 2 and Baku on July 4, 2008.
The seminar, with around 100 participants from 50 companies (from sectors such as banking, airlines, telecommunications, hotels and so on) will tell local business executives and marketing managers why and how their companies stand to gain from community work.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a broad topic of ethical business practices and corporate citizenship, which has gaining increasing importance around the world.  The United Kingdom has a well developed business community which gives a high degree of priority to this area, while in Armenia relatively little is known about CSR.  The growth of CSR in Armenia will develop partnerships between the private and the non-profit sectors, further strengthening Armenia’s move towards European integration.

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