It was a sunny Sunday afternoon on 31 January 1999 when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed a packed audience of business leaders at the World Economic Forum and proposed a “global compact” of shared values to make markets more robust and inclusive. The speech was meticulously researched; we knew it would touch the nerve of the zeitgeist. The audience was captured and it was a resounding success. But, we had no idea that with this speech a global initiative was being born.

Nearly eight years after the founding address in Davos, the UN Global Compact has become the world’s premier corporate citizenship initiative thanks to the vision and commitment of Kofi Annan. It took courage, intuition and a big dose of idealistic pragmatism to make this happen. The short history of the Global Compact is full of examples that testify to the Secretary-General’s leadership, but there are two particularly telling anecdotes.

Before the speech was delivered, it was tested on a high-level UN official who proceeded to reject the speech, calling it irrelevant. The Compact easily could have been dead before it was ever born, yet Kofi Annan did not heed the advice. Instead, he intuitively embraced the Global Compact, giving the idea a chance to see the light of the day. Over a year later, after the Compact was launched at United Nations headquarters in New York on 26 July 2000, a number of senior UN officials urged the Secretary-General to distance himself from the initiative due to dissent from NGOs and ideological preachers – both outside and inside the UN – rallying against the idea of the UN working with business. Again, there was a real risk that the Global Compact could be abandoned. And once again, against the advice of UN officials, Kofi Annan discounted such voices, remarking: “If I don’t speak the voice of reason – who will?”

We thank you, Kofi Annan, for your leadership. We are proud to have worked for you and to have given shape to your call for “idealism coupled with sound realism”. You leave behind an important legacy, and we will do our utmost to carry it forward. We look forward to working with Secretary-General designate, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and are optimistic that he will be equally supportive of the Global Compact.

Certainly, the journey into the future is guided by our past. The Global Compact builds on the foundational spirit of the UN in 1945. When the UN Charter was adopted, there was universal consensus that commerce, investment and trade were indispensable pillars of a peaceful and prosperous world. Reviving this spirit in the 21st century means learning how to work together – across countries, cultures and people. We are confident that the Global Compact’s journey has just begun.

If the voices of reason continue to have the say, if pragmatism continues to trump narrow concepts of past ideologies, present forms of protectionism and other forms of intolerance, if we continue to believe that human nature can benefit from political and economic openness, and if universal principles continue to be respected, then the UN Global Compact will remain an essential meeting ground for business and society.

Georg Kell
Executive Director, UN Global Compact