Also available with subtitles in Arabic.
Given the tumultuous change and economic stagnation throughout the Middle East and North Africa, one might be tempted to ask, is corporate governance even relevant in the current environment? The answer is yes, and here’s why.
Corporate governance is intrinsically linked to the concerns being expressed by people throughout the MENA region because good corporate governance and good democratic governance both are based on the values of accountability, transparency, responsibility, and fairness. There is now a new opportunity to talk about these issues – and how to establish institutions that uphold these values – that was never possible before.
CIPE and the Global Corporate Governance Forum officially launched their new guidebook and video resource for corporate governance, Advancing Corporate Governance in the Middle East and North Africa: Stories and Solutions, at the Corporate Governance and Responsibility Forum in Amman, Jordan on June 12-14, 2011.
The conference gathered more than 100 practitioners and businesspeople from around the world and raised issues related to corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability.
The driving force for the region’s popular uprisings is economic concerns, including unemployment and a low standard of living. Addressing these issues will require a dynamic private sector that will generate new job growth. To achieve the aspirations of the youth, it is essential to help develop stronger, more sustainable business, which depends on creating an environment where the private sector can flourish.
Implementing corporate governance is one important step in this direction – it will help companies attract investment, instill shareholder confidence, and improve productivity, and will also help rehabilitate the reputation of the business community in an environment where the private sector’s reputation is under attack. Corrupt crony capitalists associated with the ruling regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere have given the private sector and free markets a bad name.
Standing against corruption and demonstrating a commitment to corporate governance, transparency, and disclosure of conflicts of interest is an important way for businesses to generate trust and regain credibility that may have been lost.
Lofty democratic ideals will not motivate all business owners, but there are concrete benefits that corporate governance helps realize. CIPE and GCGF talked with companies around the region in order to gather success stories of how and why they made governance changes and what positive impact it had. The resulting guidebook presents real-world, practical examples that show how companies in the region overcame barriers and improved their governance practices in ways that benefited performance and growth.
The guide is intended to serve a real-world purpose: To provide assistance and motivation to directors, senior managers, regulators, and others as they try to improve existing corporate governance practices.
As governments increasingly look to the private sector to stimulate economic growth, the business community has a unique part to play in promoting values of accountability, fairness, and responsibility. This new role will help to advance democratic institutions and strengthen business ethics to the benefit of the public sector, the private sector, and society at large.