Deloitte, a global advisory firm, together with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), hosted Thursday a workshop in Iraq, tackling core issues in improving management systems in the country. As part of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), a strategic apolicy initiative for businesses, central topics were addressed, seeking to aid businesses in Iraq in aligning their operations with universally accepted principles, to excel and benefit the economy and society. The UNGC, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, has over 9,000 corporate participants and stakeholders from over 135 countries. It is a voluntary international corporate citizenship network initiated to advance responsible corporate citizenship and universal social and environmental principles in the areas of human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption. The UN Management Model is a 6-step continuous improvement system, designed to assist companies in implementing the Global Compact's 10 principles in their organizations. Each step of the management model has one or more suggested activities and areas of focus. Recommendations for each step are defined and described in detail. In addition, the workshop provided attendees with ideas both for how to get started and examples of what leadership practices look like are provided for each step. Deloitte experts took part in the training program, assisting participants in understanding the six steps, integrating the 10 principles and teaching participants how to communicate results back to the UNGC representatives on an annual basis. The six steps included in the model are: • Commit - Leadership commitment to mainstream the Global Compact principles into strategies and operations and to take action in support of broader UN goals, in a transparent way. • Assess - Assess risks, opportunities, and impacts across Global Compact issue areas • Define - Define goals, strategies, and policies. • Implement - Implement strategies and policies through the company and across the company's value chain. • Measure - Measure and monitor impacts and progress towards goals. • Communicate - Communicate progress and strategies and engage with stakeholders for continuous improvement.
