Global Compact International Yearbook 2009

Best Practice
Human Rights
paved roads and vehicles, the beekeepers
often stack the tin cans containing their
honey onto regular buses to begin the
sometimes difficult and long trip to the
market, often in Kathmandu. Here, too,
the members of a cooperative can help
each other by dividing up the tasks. This
saves time and minimises costs.
“And so we’re increasing honey production
from year to year,” GBC says about
its positive results so far. Currently, the
total amount of honey harvested and
processed is over 1,500 tonnes per year.
“The volume could potentially exceed
10,000 tonnes per year,” the company’s
specialists calculate. This potential, Dev
Bahadur Gurung and Bushan Shrestha
believe, can also be met especially with
disadvantaged people. The two experts
argue that beekeeping is not only a craft
with relatively low capital needs: Honey
can also be harvested in Nepal throughout
the year and in almost all locations,
they underline their business model.
Thanks to its topography, the tiny country
is home to many climate zones and
thus a wide variety of the flora that serves
as the best basis for producing the most
varied flavour varieties of honey.
Dev Bahadur Gurung and Bushan
Shrestha also know that honey harvesting
does not require beekeepers to own their
own land. After all, bee colonies ignore
property boundaries. “And so especially
poorer farmers can also take advantage of
this business,” GBC believes. Even people
who never learned to read and write can
raise bees, GBC notes as one of the plus
points of the assistance project.
And support for women has been up at
the top of its agenda even before the company
became a member of the United
Nations’ Global Compact in 2000 and
committed itself to its own CSR policy.
“Beekeeping is easy work and doesn’t get
in the way of housekeeping duties,” GBC
employees say, which is a major advantage
in giving women their own sources
of income. The company sees this as an
important step in reaching its goals of
reducing poverty and promoting more
equality in Nepal. “Our membership
in the Global Compact,” says Bushan
Shrestha, explaining the GBC’s decision
to join the UN initiative, “also strengthens
society’s trust in our actions.”
GBC then uses this immediately for the
good of all participants: The company
simultaneously represents to the Nepalese
government the interests of the
small cooperatives’ many beekeepers. It
takes care of the formalities for certifying
the honey production as organic and
maintains contacts with national and
international authorities or NGOs that
organise projects with the beekeepers’
association of Gandaki Bee Concern or
that want to sell their products.
GBC is the nerve centre of the “selffinancing
network”, as Bushan Shrestha
proudly calls it. There employees do
market research, devise new processing
methods and keep all beekeepers in
Nepal informed of progress. “Our honey
market is still being established,” the
GBC experts say optimistically, “but if we
continue to improve technologically and
in management, we’ll soon be competitive
in the world market.”
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