Lebanon

Corporate Volunteerism in Lebanon

The United Nations has long recognized that the private sector plays an important role in development.
Under the UNV private sector scheme, corporate volunteers provide short-term advisory services to support UN projects in achieving the MDGs, and with a particular focus on business development in developing countries. Through the mobilization of private sector employees as volunteers, UNV supports the contribution of private sector skills and experiences towards peace and development goals. Corporate volunteer assignments support projects of several UN agencies, government counterparts and local institutions.

For UNDP/UNV the rationale for becoming involved with the private sector for the promotion of development is not merely an issue of mobilizing non-governmental sources for funding of development programmes. It is one of recognizing the private sector as an influential, inevitable and indeed imperative agent of development.

The first cooperation of this sort in Lebanon began in 2001, In 2001 UNV embarked on an 18 month research project: "Enhancing Business-Community Relations". This was implemented in partnership with the New Academy of Business, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and local partners in seven developing countries, amongst them Lebanon. The purpose of the initiative was to collect and document information on business community practices as perceived by all stakeholders, build partnerships with them and promote corporate social responsibility practices.

In 2011 Lebanon has received two missions from Kraft Foods. The first mission, 2 experts from Australia and Argentina aimed at supporting women food processing cooperatives in the Bekaa. The two experts from Australia and Argentina focused on marketing, sales and distribution strategies. On the second mission, the two experts from USA and South Africa were fielded to a factory in Tripoli, extracting essential oils from wild plants to make soap, lotion etc., and assisting in effective, sustainable harvesting techniques.

Kraft mission 1: "Corporate Volunteers supporting women's food processing cooperative"
kraft mission 2: "Corporate Volunteers supporting environmental sustainability"