CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri Addresses UN Panel
July 15, 14
 Meeting at the UN (from left): Corrado Facco, Hanifa Mezoui, |
Dr. Cavalieri was addressing the annual keynote gathering of the UN agency as the head of the jewelry industry' only organization with special consultative status with ECOSOC, which it has had since 2006. CIBJO was also one of only a handful of NGOs with special consultative status invited to make a formal oral statement before the 2014 High Level Segment.
Cavalieri was accompanied in New York by Corrado Facco, Executive Director of Italian trade fair organizer Fiera di Vicenza, which has been accredited by the United Nations to deliver UN recognized Corporate Social Responsibility programs for the jewelry industry together with CIBJO, and Professor Alba Cappellieri, who heads the prestigious jewelry design department at Politecnico di Milano university, which features a series that focuses specifically on the creation of responsible and sustainable jewelry.
In his address, Cavalieri reviewed CIBJO's efforts to promote an industry-wide understanding that the jewelry industry should provide both sustainable and social development opportunities in the countries and regions where its stakeholders reside.
CIBJO, Cavalieri said, has been unrelenting in promoting the UN Development Agenda and the Millennium Development Goals. "For almost 10 years, CIBJO and its worldwide membership have not only integrated the MDGs in the activities and in the program of each annual Congress, but we have also launched a concrete campaign of awareness, education and training, in order to insert the MDGs in the daily operations of our members throughout the world," he stated.
More recently, Cavalieri said, CIBJO's supply chain integrity initiative with the Branded Trust Foundation is structured to ensure that all major UN treaties, conventions and principles covering good governance, human rights, anti-discrimination, fair labor practices, anti-corruption and the Millennium Development Goals have been integrated into the CSR program.
CIBJO, he told the UN gathering, has entered in various partnership agreements with other major organizations to support the MDGs and to ensure compliance with the UN human rights, civil rights, labor rights and gender rights. "These partnership agreements contribute to greater ethical awareness and accountability, as well as to mutual support with civil society organizations," he stated.
During their meeting in New York, the CIBJO delegation met and were hosted by a number of senior UN and ECOSOC officials, including Navid Hanif, director of ECOSOC's Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which has responsibility for CIBJO's involvement in the UN's development program after 2015; Alberto Padova, Deputy Chief, NGO Branch at DESA; Qatari Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, who heads the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and President of the 66th General Assembly; and Muna Rihani, Chairperson of the UN Women for Peace Association, with whom they discussed a 'Jewelry for Peace' project.