First IOE NY Update of 2022

The IOE office in New York got off to a busy start in 2022 expanding relations with selected UN agencies and highlighting the private sector's contributions toward addressing today's most pressing issues.

The first quarter of 2022 was extremely busy for IOE New York, organising and collaborating with multi-stakeholders activities at the UN to ensure the voice of business is heard at the UN table.

IOE and its members have been well represented and will certainly continue to be at the upcoming UN events, which you are invited to take note of:

Upcoming events

5-6 May 2022: Science and Technology Forum (STI)

• Registration link
• Side events:
  • Innovation and Our Common Agenda: Partnering With Business to Turbocharge SDG Action. This event is co-organised by IOE, USCIB, KPMG, and Microsoft, and is scheduled for 4 May, 9:00 – 10:30 EDT. Please find the event page through this link: https://www.uscib.org/event/uscib-sti-forum-side-event/
  • Tackling the Digital Divide: Partnering for Access, Skills, and Empowering Girls. IOE is organising a keynote event with leaders from the business community in LDCs, international corporations and organisations together with experts from widely respected think tanks to discuss how to close the digital skills gap in LDCs on 6 May, 2022, 12:00 EDT. Please find more information here: https://bit.ly/IOE-ILO-Microsoft-STIForum

5-15 July 2022: High-level Political Forum (HLPF)

• 46 countries will present their Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) and there will be a focus on implementation of SDGs: SDG 4 on Education, SDG 5 on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, SDG 14 on Ocean and Seas, SDG 15 on Desertification Land Degradation and Drought. The Business and Industry Major Group and IOE will host some events during the two weeks sessions and will keep members updated as they take place. Over the next few weeks, IOE members and staff will attend several preparatory meetings for the HLPF and will discuss SDG 4, 5,14 and 15 in Expert Group Meetings. 

For a look back on the events that took place over the last three months, here's a summary of IOE New York's partnerships and achievements:

2 February: 2022 ECOSOC Partnership Forumwas held under the theme "Building back better from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development".

• IOE side event Changing the landscape by breaking down silos: Cross-cutting business partnerships was organised in partnership with the ILO and UNCTAD.
  • Recording of the conference 
• IOE Spotlight session – Building back better from the bottom up: collaboration with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises for SDG Implementation. This spotlight session was moderated by Akustina Morni, and featured business leaders and international organisations' officials as key speakers.
  • Recording of the conference

21 February: 2022 World Day of Social Justice – Achieving Social Justice through Formal Employment

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the vulnerability of workers in the informal economy. Informal workers, who often lack any form of social protection or employment-related benefits, are twice as likely to be poor compared to formal workers.

• IOE Secretary-General Roberto Suárez Santos spoke at this session.
  • Recording of the conference

15 March: UN Global Compact's Target Gender Equality LIVE event, organised by the UN Global Compact

The Target Gender Equality Live event virtually convened business leaders from across the globe together with leaders from government, civil society, philanthropy, academia, and the United Nations to discuss how the private sector can accelerate gender equality, disrupt bias, and unlock leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation to tackle the world's greatest challenges.

• Akustina Morni session: UN Global Compact's Target Gender Equality LIVE event
  • Recording of the conference
• Florence Willie (Papua New Guinea) session: Fireside Chat: From Sports to Climate Change - Making Gender Equality a Priority
  • Recording of the conference

24 March: Accelerating Action: Transformative partnerships in Least Developed Countries

• IOE and Microsoft officially announced their partnership to scale up digital skills in 4 LDC countries –the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Senegal and Uganda– with practical twenty-first century digital and business skills.
  • Recording of the conference

30 March: The Business Environment in Africa: Innovative approaches to foster the formalisation of enterprises in Africa, organised by IOE and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

This conference aimed to assess the current measures taken by African governments in the effort to improve the business climate; presented examples of private sector actions in Africa in the fight against informality; assessed the current needs of the private sector in Africa in order to support the transition of companies to the formal sector; discussed the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the business world in Africa.

• A report on this conference will be issued shortly. 
  • Recording of the conference

Informal Consultations on the UN Secretary General’s Report - Our Common Agenda

The President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Abdulla Shahid, convened five informal thematic consultations on the landmark UN report, Our Common Agenda (OCA), released by Secretary-General António Guterres in September 2021. Through a five-part series of consultations, between February and March 2022, Member States and other stakeholders, including the private sector, were given the opportunity to discuss the proposals outlined in the OCA and their potential implementation in the Decade of Action. To find more information on Our Common Agenda, please visit this website. 

• IOE Secretary-General Roberto Suárez-Santos and USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson spoke at two of the sessions.