Workshop on “Foreign Investment, Multinational Enterprises and the Media”

Date: October 12, 2010 9:00am
Location: Columbia University, Jerome Greene Annex (Law School)

Foreign direct investment (FDI), undertaken by multinational enterprises (MNEs), has grown tremendously since the 1990s, and developing countries have attracted a large chunk of it. Over the past half a dozen years, the flows have also become more bidirectional, with multinationals from countries like Brazil, China, India and Russia investing in Europe and North America. The question of sustainable development − including environmental, social, economic, and governance dimensions − is a strand woven through all the panel discussions described below, even where it is not explicitly mentioned.

VCC partnered with Vale to host a workshop on “Foreign Investment, Multinational Enterprises and the Media” for approximately 15 senior journalists, mostly from Brazil, to discuss practical issues related to FDI, paying special attention to the contribution of FDI to sustainable development. One session focused on the particular issues raised by extractive industry investments.

This workshop put the issues of FDI and sustainable development in context, especially for emerging markets, in order to encourage media coverage of such trends and events.

The program and the bios of the speakers are both available for download.