Home > Partners > Corporate and Foundation Partners > Corporate Partners > Council of Business Leaders
Council of Business Leaders
UNHCR Council of Business Leaders
Launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2005, the Council of Business Leaders is a network of major multinational corporations committed to developing multi-level, multi-year partnerships with UNHCR to empower forcibly displaced people and help find durable solutions for them.
The Council works alongside UNHCR to leverage specific corporate core competencies with a view to helping UNHCR become a more efficient and effective organization, and to raise public awareness about UNHCR and the cause of refugees through outreach, cause-related marketing initiatives, campaigns and special events.
Members also allocate in-kind or financial resources to specific projects; draw on networks to support UNHCR partnership-building and fund-raising efforts vis-à-vis third party organizations, including corporations and philanthropic groups; help identify individual donors; and champion UNHCR within the wider corporate world.
Since the establishment of the Council of Business Leaders, UNHCR has organized three field visits for senior executives of the member corporations. These have taken Council members to East Africa and the Great Lakes in 2006, Thailand in 2007 and southern Africa in 2009.
The aim of these trips is to give business leaders an opportunity to learn more about UNHCR's work in the field as well as to see for themselves the impact of their involvement on the daily life of refugees and how they can help further.
Current Council of Business Leaders members include:
- Manpower
- Microsoft
- Nike
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- WPP
