IBLF - Europe

EUROPE

IBLF first started its activities in the post-communist region of Europe in the early 1990s.

IBLF was responding to a fear that the rapid spread of globalisation might destabilise society as the countries began to create free market democracies.

To help address these challenges IBLF embarked on a strategy to promote the idea and practice of responsible business, which included cross-sector partnership approaches to meeting local development challenges – an idea now endemic to the IBLF and all that it undertakes.

IBLF is still active in central, eastern and southern Europe in raising the profile of responsible business, and virtually all IBLF programmes, activities and methodologies have been transferred and adapted from initiatives first tested in Europe.

Read more about IBLF's ongoing work in the Western Balkans

Networks

IBLF was responsible for the creation of the first-ever, business-led network, dedicated to responsible business practice and partnership action to meet development challenges. This now comprises over 400 companies, and stretches across Central and Eastern Europe in the form of Business Leader Forums in Hungary, Czech Republic and Bulgaria, and the Autokraecja Association in Poland.
Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum
Czech Business Leaders Forum
Hungarian Business Leaders Forum
Autokreacja Association (Poland)

Education and school-to-work programmes

Including manager shadowing in Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland and the first in-region student careers advisory service; the Autokreacja Camp, to improve the employability of the young, disadvantaged and minority groups - transferred to Poland through an early IBLF training programme, Learning from Experience

IBLF has been awarded a grant from the EC to transfer and adapt its successful business-supported Autokreacja Camp model, which addresses youth employability and entrepreneurship issues, from Poland to Russia. This project is called New Life Scenarios for Russian Youth. As part of this process, IBLF organised a visit to Scotland in February 2006 for a group of people from Russian NGOs and government departments .
More on New Life Scenarios

Industrial restructuring workshops

Organised across Hungary and Poland to aid regeneration of industrial towns, and urban development partnerships such as the Krakow Development Forum which helped regenerate neglected parts of the city.

Ongoing IBLF programmes

IBLF operates a number of programmes and initiatives in Europe, including Youth Career Initiative, which was originally developed in Thailand, and now has been transferred to Romania and Poland and is being piloted in Spain; and ENGAGE, the IBLF’s employee volunteering programme, which is now operating in nine countries across Europe.

To find out more about IBLF's activities in Europe since 1990, take a look at a report IBLF published in July 2004, entitled IBLF in Europe: the continuing revolution.