Deputy Secretary-General Addresses CEO Water Mandate

(New York, 19 September 2013) – United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson addressed a special session of the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, emphasizing the need for international cooperation with the business community to address global water and sanitation challenges.

The Deputy Secretary-General provided the keynote address at the CEO Water Mandate‘s special event during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York City. The event — titled “Corporate Water Stewardship in the Post-2015 Development Agenda — featured approximately 120 leaders from business, government and the United Nations, civil society, and other interests.

The purpose of the session was to further explore how the CEO Water Mandate and its work around corporate water stewardship can help inform the post-2015 development process, as well as contributing to solutions –through such platforms as the CEO Water Mandate’s global Water Action Hub.

As the Deputy Secretary-General said: “Where social environments are fragile, you (business) can and must be central players – reinforcing respect for human rights and the rule of law; making jobs available to youth; and supporting the provision of basic services such as energy, water and sanitation.”

Gavin Power, Deputy Director of the UN Global Compact, added: “More than 800 million people on the planet lack access to safe drinking water, and more than two billion are denied basic sanitation. This is an outrage that affects human dignity and undermines societies and economies.”

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About the CEO Water Mandate
Launched in July 2007 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the CEO Water Mandate is a public-private initiative designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices. Led by the United Nations Global Compact in partnership with the Pacific Institute, the CEO Water Mandate offers a unique action platform to share best and emerging practices and to forge multi-stakeholder partnerships to address the problems of access to water and sanitation. The CEO Water Mandate has been endorsed by nearly 100 companies from a range of industries and sectors. www.ceowatermandate.org

About the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit
Chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2013: Architects of a Better World (19-20 September) brings together chief executives with leaders from civil society, Government and the United Nations to unveil a new global architecture for corporate sustainability. As the Millennium Development Goals 2015 deadline approaches, the Summit will set the stage for business to shape and advance the post-2015 development agenda – putting forward an architecture for business to contribute to global priorities, such as climate change, water, food, equality, decent jobs, and education, at unprecedented levels. www.leaderssummit2013.org

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CEO Water Mandate Secretariat
The CEO Water Mandate is a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General and the UN Global Compact, implemented in partnership with the Pacific Institute. These key partners work together as the CEO Water Mandate Secretariat. The Mandate Secretariat supports the initiative’s mission in many ways, including: 1) developing research, guidance, and tools that advance corporate water stewardship; 2) convening multi-stakeholder events to identify, explore, and solve key water challenges; 3) facilitating meaningful collective action to improve conditions in at-risk river basins.