Accra, Nov. 11, GNA - Dr Joyce Aryee, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, on Thursday urged Ghanaian businesses to ensure that they operated within internationally accepted standards to enhance the country's economic status.

Quoting the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, Dr Aryee said "Business practices rooted in universal values could bring social and economic gains," and urged Ghanaian businesses to join the United Nations Global Compact. The Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative that encourages businesses worldwide to align their operations and strategies within certain universally accepted principles' in the area of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Dr Aryee at a press soiree to educate Ghanaians about the programme, stressed the importance of Ghanaian businesses joining the Global compact saying, "the way we do business in this country can make or unmake the nation."

She further advised businesses to work against anti-corruption in all its forms including extortion and bribery. Giving the background of the UN Global Compact, she said the programme was launched in year 2000 as a response to a challenge by the former UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum in January 1999. Dr Aryee said there were about 46 Ghanaian companies, who were members and had formed a network with other stakeholders to learn and exchange experiences and urged other non-governmental organizations, governmental organizations, civil society organizations including the media to come together to advance the cause of the Global Compact. She emphasized that the Global Compact was a commitment to good corporate responsibility.

Mrs Christy Ahenkora-Banya, Focal Person of the UN Global Compact in Ghana, said development was not about government only but it was also about the private sector. 11 Nov. 10