Responsible Business Summit on Aug 3-4

Kathmandu, July 20: The National Business Initiative (NBI) is organising the second Responsible Business Summit on August 3 and 4 in Kathmandu, with an aim of promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and good business practices in Nepal.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will inaugurate the summit amidst a plenary of nearly 500 top executives, business people and activists engaged in responsible business, said Padma Jyoti, president of NBI.

“The 2-day summit will cover 16 different sessions, and various corporate groups, small and medium enterprises, banks, government agencies, development partners and other stakeholders will discuss about the scope, nature, benefits and challenges of business responsibility in Nepal,” said Jyoti at a press conference organized to inform about the summit.

The summit is also expected to motivate and facilitate businesses to implement the new CSR laws of Nepal.

According to the organisers, the conference will deliberate on ‘Internal business practices’ to improve management system, ‘Stakeholder engagement’ to manage needs of close stakeholders of business, ‘Fostering partnership’ to improve business improvement, and ‘Academia and regulation’ to shape the future agenda of responsible business in Nepal.

“Each session will have one prominent international speaker and two national speakers of which at least one will represent the case of Nepali companies,” said Jyoti.

Some of the key international dignitaries addressing the sessions include managing director of Bhutan Power Corporation Gem Tshering, head of the Asia and the Oceania Region of United Nations Global Compact Meng Liu, head of Institutional Partnerships and Corporate Communications of Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs AtulDevSarmah, chief executive officer of SOL Analytics and former head of marketing of Nokia Corporations in the Middle East Sudhir Nair, vice-president of National University of Singapore SeeramRamakrishnan, and former president or World University Association Prof. Dr. Dzul.

Similarly, the domestic speakers include representatives from corporates such as Jyoti Group, Vaidya Organization, Panchakanya Group, Golchha Organization, FNCCI and many other innovative enterprises including small and medium businesses.

Likewise, government speakers include representatives from Ministry of Industry, Nepal Rashtra Bank, Election Commission of Nepal, Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority and Nepal Electricity Authority whereas civil society representatives come from labor union, environmental activists, youth activists and anti-corruption activists.

Tribhuwan University and Kathmandu University have partnered in organizing the summit.