Development Bank Ghana (DBG) says it will today be signing on to the United Nations Global Compact.
This is part of the Bank’s efforts to strengthen its commitments and operations with a sustainable business and greater governance framework.
The United Nations pact enjoins its signatories, mostly businesses and firms worldwide, to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation.
The Compact has a ten-principle-based framework for businesses.
This enables them to operate in ways which meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption which form the pillars of the UN Global Compact.
By incorporating the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact into strategies, policies, and procedures, and establishing a culture of integrity, companies are not only upholding their basic responsibilities to people and the planet but also setting the stage for long-term success.
DBG by becoming a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact is reinforcing its commitment to uphold and protect human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption principles through its business practices.
The UN Global Compact provides DBG with a universal language for corporate responsibility and a framework to guide all businesses regardless of size, complexity, or location.
The UN Global Compact also positions DBG to effectively assess, define, implement, measure, and communicate its sustainability strategy goals.
Most importantly, the tenets of the UN Global Compact are strategies DBG currently employs throughout its operations so by joining the Compact the Bank is strengthening its commitment to do clean, responsible, and green business.
Commenting on DBG joining the UN Global Compact, Kwamena Duker, Chief Executive Officer of DBG said, “DBG is pleased to join the many organisations all over the world who are signatories to the UN Global Compact and who believe as we do, that ethical business conduct is an important component that enables companies to foster sustainable development.”
The United Nations Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative with 13,000 corporate participants and other stakeholders in over 170 countries with the objectives of mainstreaming the ten principles in business activities around the world and catalyse actions in support of broader United Nations goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
DBG is Ghana’s new development finance institution which with the support of international development finance partners such as the African Development Bank, European Investment Bank, the World Bank and KfW, the German development bank, seeks to improve financing and technical support to the private sector through a wholesale model which operates via commercial banks designated as participating financial institutions (PFIs).
DBG was launched in June 2022 and is currently engaged in building a strong network of PFIs and local agencies who share common aspirations and objectives to improve the support to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and to attain its vision of accelerating inclusive and sustainable economic transformation by fostering the growth of a competitive private sector.