Dear Participants,

It is with great pleasure that we unveil the premiere issue of the Compact Quarterly. This new publication will deliver – four times a year – a range of articles and contributions designed to stimulate and challenge Global Compact participants and stakeholders, while updating you on significant developments related to the initiative.

The Global Compact enters 2005 with wind in its sails, but also facing a fair share of challenges. The last year was a pivotal one in many respects. The Leaders Summit in June provided us with an opportunity to re-engage leaders from all sectors – business, labour, civil society, and government – and set the strategic course and priorities for the coming years.  A conference in London in November brought together the focal points of many country networks, who are now engaged in defining governance systems. The adoption of the tenth principle on anti-corruption was followed up with a roll-out of tools for implementation. And our work with financial markets, both investment companies (Who Cares Wins) and stock exchanges, progressed significantly.

While these were important achievements, it is clear that the Global Compact must focus more on action and impact. The Global Compact today stands as an impressive network of nearly 2,000 companies and other stakeholder organizations. However, putting the principles into practice remains the overriding challenge. A bold step was taken in this regard with an explicit policy for how companies should describe their implementation of the principles – the so-called Communication on Progress.

Consultations on the overall governance of the initiative are progressing. At the same time, country networks must play a leading role – for it is at the local level where many of humanity’s problems reside, business dilemmas exist and the needs are the greatest. Moving forward, active country networks will seek to scale up activities, while sleepy networks must become more dynamic, or fade away. Country networks will also be critical with respect to protecting the integrity of the initiative and its brand through, for instance, encouraging companies to communicate progress and helping to resolve any issues and concerns related to specific company action.

The international community will give much attention this year to the Millennium Development Goals, with the United Nations holding a summit on the MDGs later in the year. Here, is it worth underscoring that the Global Compact’s two complementary objectives – i) making the ten principles part of business strategy and operations; and ii) promoting partnerships – contribute directly to development. The implementation of the principles is fundamentally about sustainable development, while partnership projects help companies and stakeholders scale up action within and even beyond their spheres of influence. At the end of the day, business has as essential role as the pursuit of the MDGs helps create stable, inclusive and thriving markets.

And then there is China. The world’s most populous nation will come into sharp focus for the Global Compact in 2005, with the convening of an international conference in Shanghai in November. This conference will give Global Compact participants an opportunity to dialogue with their Chinese counterparts and begin to unravel the complexities and opportunities of the Chinese economy, using the ten principles as guiding lights.

Finally, we wish to recognize the generosity of scores of Global Compact participants as they contribute to the relief and reconstruction of South Asia following the tsunami. They joined many other private-sector organizations around the world in an unprecedented response to the disaster.

We hope you find this first issue of the Compact Quarterly engaging and thought-provoking.

Sincerely,

Georg Kell                                                 John G. Ruggie
Executive Head                                          Special Advisor to the Secretary-
                                                                General on the Global Compact