UN, Azerbaijan sign Memorandum of Understanding to promote corporate responsibility and resilient businesses

Vladanka Andreeva, UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan, Orkhan Mammadov, Chairperson of the Small and Medium Business Development Agency Board, and Osman Khaliyev, Acting Chairperson of the Entrepreneurship Development Fund Board signed the document.

The MoU aims to strengthen relations between society, business, and the state to achieve the five national  socio-economic development priorities aligned with national Sustainable Development Goals targets; to  build resilient business models while recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic; and to prepare local businesses to enter international markets and improve their competitiveness.

The signatories will also undertake joint measures to integrate the ten principles of the UN Global compact on labour, human rights, environment and anti-corruption into the financial instruments and processes of the Entrepreneurship Development Fund and the Small and Medium Business Development Agency.

The UN Global Compact is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world with more than 12,000 business and 3,000 non-business stakeholders across 160 countries. It is a call to companies to align their strategy and operations with the ten universally accepted principles and contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda on sustainable development. The principles derive from major international documents such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work by the International Labour Organization, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the UN Convention against Corruption.