Veolia Group
In the world
Specialty Brands

Session 4 : Poverty eradication and quality of the environment, what is the role of the private sector?

 June 28, 2011
 Maison de la Chimie - Paris
 Poverty and the environment
In order to contribute to sustainable development, the private sector must therefore propose solutions that integrate resource management, impact and pollution control, as well as multiple social dimensions – poverty being the most prominent – in a sometimes insecure and unstable context.

 

 

The private sector is a key player without which these goals would be impossible to reach.

► Plenary session: Poverty eradication and quality of the environment, what is the role of the private sector? 
 

Marcel ENGEL, ​Director of the Regional Network and Head of the Development Focus Area, WBCSD

Marcel Engel is a member of the WBCSD’s Executive Team. As such, he is responsible for coordinating the Regional Network of 60 like-minded partner organizations and managing the Development Focus Area, which promotes business solutions to socio-economic and environmental challenges in developing countries. He is also a non-Executive Director of a not for profit company to accelerate energy access in rural Africa and a member of various advisory committees of international organizations and initiatives. Before joining the WBCSD, Engel worked in the hospitality industry and for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). He holds a Swiss hotel management diploma, and master degrees International Relations and Development Economics from the University of Constance (Germany) and the London School of Economics.

Maria NOWAK, ​Founding President, ADIE

An alumna of Science Po Paris and the London School of Economics, Maria Nowak has spent most of her career working for the Agence Française de Développement, including as Director of Policies and Studies. Since the mid-1980s, she has been involved in the development of microcredit. She first duplicated the experience of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in West Africa within the AFD, before launching the first microcredit programs in Central and Eastern Europe in the framework of the World Bank at the beginning of the 1990s. She led a similar program in France within the ADIE, which she founded in 1988 and presided over as a volunteer until March 2011. She is also President of ADIE International, MicroStart and ADIE Microfranchise Solidaire, which belong to the group ADIE, as well as of the Association Friends of Grameen. She wrote Banker of Hope published (Albin Michel, 1994), OnlyWealthy People can borrow (JC Lattès, 2005), and Economic Hope : from micro-financing to social entrepreneurship, the ferments of a new world (JC Lattès, 2010).

Mohamed Lamine DHAOUI, Director, Business, Investment and Technology Services Branch, Programme Development and Technical Cooperation Division (PTC/BIT), UNIDO

Born in 1953, Mr. Lamine Dhaoui is heading UNIDO’s BIT Branch. Serving UNIDO since 1990, he has held various positions including Special Adviser/ Coordinator of Thematic Issues for the Office of the UNIDO Director-General and Deputy Director for the Trade Capacity Building (PTC/TCB) Branch. He participated as resource person in several seminars and conferences on industrial competitiveness and private sector development. He published a methodological guide on: Restructuring, upgrading and industrial competitiveness in 2003. Holds a Doctorate in management science from Paris Dauphine University, and he was also professor at the High Institute of Management of the University of Tunis.

 

PDF
Presentation of Bjorn STIGSON (Represented by Marcel ENGEL) (1.71 MB)

► Thematic session 4.1: Creativity and integration of the informal sector

Sonia Maria DIAS, Waste sector specialist, Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) (Brazil)

Sonia Dias is a sector specialist at WIEGO. She is a sociologist by training and garbologist by heart. She has a PhD in Political Science and a Master´s in Human Geography. She has been active in the waste management field in Brazil with a focus on promoting the integration of social inclusion aspects into the technical planning of municipal recycling. Her on the ground experience encompass: work as a public officer at the Municipal Cleansing Agency in Belo Horizonte; voluntary work for NGOs and social activist for the Waste and Citizenship Fora. She is an Eisenhower Fellow.

Maria Sabrina DE GOBBI, Economist, ILO

Maria Sabrina De Gobbi has been working at the International Labour Organisation since 1998. She has degrees in the areas of economics, law and environmental management. She is currently working as a research economist, but has also been dealing with technical cooperation projects in the past. She has extensive work experience in the fields of microfinance, enterprise development, labour market and employment policies, gender, the informal economy and the environment. Her work has focused mainly on developing countries particularly in Africa and Latin America. She has published on different topics including mutual guarantee associations, mutual financial institutions, enterprise development and women's empowerment, labour market flexibility and security in developing countries, environmental issues in sustainable enterprises, and ecological networks.

Jean-Pierre CLING, Professor of Economics, University Paris 13

Jean-Pierre Cling has a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Paris Dauphine and has graduated from the National School of Statistics (ENSAE) in Paris. He is an Administrator at the INSEE (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies). From 2000 to 2007, he was the Director of DIAL (Development, Institutions and Globalization), a research group in development economics founded by the Agence Française de Développement as well as by the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). From 2007 to 2010, he was based in Vietnam (Hanoi) at the IRD. Since then, he is a Professor in Economics at the University Paris 13. He has written numerous papers in development economics, including several about informal employment as well as the informal sector.

 

► Thematic session 4.2: Is there a place for environmental protection in improving access to basic goods and services for the poor?

​Diana MANGALAGIU, Professor, Reims Management School and Oxford University

Diana Mangalagiu is Professor at Reims Management School, France, Associate Professor at Oxford University and Sciences Po Paris. Diana has a dual background, in both natural sciences (PhD Artificial Intelligence, MSc Physics, MSc Microelectronics) and social sciences (MSc Sociology, MSc Management). Over the past decade, Diana’s research focused on climate change, sustainability and social responsibility in corporate and public policy. From 2001 to 2003, she spent two years traveling, leading and participating in research and local development projects in Latin America, Africa and South Pacific. Diana is Romanian and French national. By her travels, she became fluent in seven languages.

Eric LESUEUR, ​Director, Grameen VeoliaWater projects

Éric Lesueur (aged 52), graduate from the École Polytechnique, started his career in engineering and industrial chemistry. He joined Veolia Environnement in 1993, as Director of the consultancy in charge of the management of municipal waste. After having held various responsibilities within the company, he was appointed Deputy Director of R&D and the Group’s Environment Director. In 2006 he joined the General Management of Veolia Water where he developed new activities in the field of social business and sustainable cities. Strongly involved in sustainable solutions for Veolia, he is Director for the Grameen Veolia Water projects which aim at social business solutions in Bangladesh with Pr. Mohamad Yunus. Eric Lesueur reports directly to Veolia Environnement's executive committee.

​Gilles VERMOT DESROCHES, Director for Sustainable Development, Schneider Electric

After first working as the director of a NGO and then within a ministerial office, Gilles Vermot Desroches joined Schneider Electric in 1998 in order to establish and develop The Schneider Electric Foundation, under the aegis of the Foundation of France. Three years later, he took the head of the Global Direction for Sustainable Development. Besides the Foundation, this new department was in charge of leading the initiative and the implementation of social, ethical and environmental responsibility policies as well as of making all the stakeholders aware of sustainable development issues. Gilles Vermot Desroches is also a member of the Board of Directors of the French Forum for Friends of Global Compact as well as of the ORSE (Obervatory for corporate social responsibility), of the OSI (Social and International Observatory), of the scientific committee of IMS “Undertaking for the city“. He is a lecturer at Sciences- Po Paris and a member of the National Council for Sustainable Development of the Grenelle de l’Environnement.

► Thematic session 4.3: Feasibility and implementation of innovative funding

​Paul VAN AALST, Director, E+Co Europe

Paul van Aalst is Director of E+Co Europe and prior to that was a member of E+Co’s Executive Board. E+Co is an investment company for energy enterprises in developing countries. His primary focus is investor relations and includes developing and managing investment products to finance E+Co’s investment activities. In this capacity he has led the fundraising, closing and relationship management of over USD 30 million of financing from several development finance institutions. He lead the E+Co team in the design, development, fundraising and closing of the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF), the EUR 110 million fund managed by the EIB. Over the last 25 years Mr. Van Aalst has been involved in developing and managing investment vehicles and in advisory work in the field of sustainable investing with international corporations, public organizations and financial institutions. Mr. Van Aalst holds a Msc. degree in Business Economics.

​Alain GUINEBAULT, Managing Director, GERES

A physicist engineer with a specialty in energy, Alain Guinebault has been working for GERES (Groupe Energies Renouvelables, Environnement et Solidarités) since 1984. He is currently heading GERES which leads programs in France as well as in 12 countries from the South (Morocco, India, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Benin, Mali, etc.) in the fields of clean energy production, energy’s sobriety and efficiency, economic development, local policies and climate changes. Alain Guinebault is currently coordinating more than 50 projects implemented on the field by 200 colleagues by resorting to development engineering as well as to an adequate technical expertise. He has contributed to the development of the first French program in compensating the emissions of greenhouse gases, called CO2Solidaire. Alain Guinebault participated in creating the cooperative Nexus that gathers actors who want to increase their projects’ impact through the carbon finance.

Julien MEIMON, Project officer for innovative financing, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs

Appointed Partnerships and innovative Financing for Development Unit Leader, Ministry of Foreign and
European Affairs in July 2010, Julien Meimon has spent the major part of his career in the field of international cooperation. He holds a PHD in Political Sciences and worked for the Ministry of Economy,
Labor and Industry and for the Centre For International Studies and Research (CERI).