The UN: A stabilizing force in the world economy

As national economies become more and more interdependent through information, trade, investment and financial ties, the UN is helping to fill a growing need for international cooperation and regulatory consistency to spread the benefits of globalization and to avoid chaos and backlash.

• The UN provides the "soft infrastructure" for the global economy. It sets technical standards and norms in such diverse areas as statistics, trade laws, customs procedures, intellectual property, aviation, shipping and telecommunications, thus facilitating economic activity and reducing transaction costs.
  
• The UN prepares the ground for investment in emerging economies, by promoting political stability and good governance, battling corruption and human rights abuses, urging sound economic policies and business-friendly legislation, and working to improve health, education and social well-being.
  
• The UN addresses the down side of globalization, by fighting transnational crime, the traffic in drugs, arms and people, and other "problems without passports". Much of its operational work in over 170 countries is aimed at combating poverty. These efforts reduce tensions, prevent backlash and help build future markets.
  
• The UN is working to solve global environmental problems. Free markets don't automatically do this. As an international forum for building consensus and negotiating agreements, the UN is tackling transboundary problems like climate change, ozone depletion, toxic waste, loss of forests and species, and air and water pollution. Unless these problems are addressed, markets and economies will not be sustainable in the long term - for they are depleting the natural "capital" on which growth, and human survival, are based.
  
• UN values are the cornerstone of an interdependent world. Globalizing markets rely on contractual and trust-based relationships built on shared values.
  Since its inception, the UN's primary mission has been to advocate universal values: freedom, justice and the peaceful resolution of disputes; social progress and better standards of living; equality, tolerance and dignity. The global acceptance and spread of these values is forging a common understanding that is paving the way for markets to expand and take root.

The Global Compact. In 1999, Kofi Annan brought the whole relationship one step higher with the Global Compact announced at Davos. He challenged the business community -- individually through companies, and collectively through business associations -- to embrace, support and enact a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, and environmental practices.