Report (Part 5): Sustainable Development Convention 2002

Track 8: Enterprises

Time: 31 October 2002, 11:45 ? 12:00 Location: Salle A Chair: Peter Sissons Presenters/ Participants: Antoine Mach ? CovalenceEdouard Markiewicz ? Media Action InternationalLouis Belle ? Swiss Federal Strategy Unit for Information Technology  Reporter: Julie Archer (ICVolunteers) Languages: English Key words: Sustainable development, enterprise, training, information, knowledge-sharing, Media Action International, Covalence, SUIT, project management, social responsibility 

In this short session, moderator Peter Sissons conducted brief interviews with project representatives from Track Eight, Enterprise Development and Training, to provide attending delegates with an overview of the projects and to help delegates select project workshops to attend later in the afternoon.

Mr. Louis Belle from the Swiss Federal Strategy Unit for Information Technology (SUIT) opened with an introduction to HERMES, a project management methodology used within the Swiss federal system and available in the public domain free of charge in four languages. SUIT plans to adapt the tool to support sustainable development projects in the least developed countries (LDCs). The primary goal of the HERMES SD Project is knowledge transfer: to train information and communications technology project managers in LDCs on the HERMES system and to develop a "project management culture" which will increase the productivity, success and quality of sustainable development projects.

The second project, WSIS-TRAIN, was presented by Mr. Edouard Markiewicz, the Director of Media Action International. WSIS-TRAIN stands for World Summit on the Information Society Training Project, a media capacity-building project for LDCs. Media Action International plans to provide media training for journalists and media organizations in LDCs through workshops, publications and a website in order to empower them to prepare for the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005. A so-called "digital divide" has grown between those who have access to technology and information and those who do not —largely a division that corresponds to North versus South and rich versus poor. Mr. Markiewicz's organization wants to ensure inclusive public dialogue in the preparations and follow-up to these summits by starting a process of training people in LDCs who can then train others and encourage their participation.

Mr. Antoine Mach, the head of Research and Development at Covalence SA, concluded this session with a presentation on a scoring system developed by his organization to measure the social responsibility of multinational companies through the analysis of information provided by the media, the companies themselves, NGOs and other sources. The system could provide a tool for the financial industry and for consumers to use to analyze risk or make choices on ethical investments. The project is currently in a prototype phase with the in-depth analysis of the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies. Covalence plans to expand its database and go live by 2003.

Conclusions
Each of the projects was scheduled for longer workshop-style presentations in the afternoon, and moderator Peter Sissons urged delegates to attend to learn more and to pursue networking and partnership opportunities.