UN Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group sign agreement for the Award for Intercultural Innovation

Munich / New York. The UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group are pooling their expertise in the area of intercultural understanding in a joint initiative, the ‘Award for Intercultural Innovation’. An agreement was signed yesterday at the UN’s New York Headquarters as part of the 66th UN General Assembly by President Jorge Sampaio, UN High Representative for the Alliance, and Konstanze Carreras, Senior Official for Corporate Social Responsibility of the BMW Group. The signature took place in the presence of ministers from over 130 countries and international organizations and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon.



The ‘BMW Group Award for Intercultural Innovation in support of the Alliance of Civilizations under the auspices of the United Nations’ is a unique award in its category, and represents a new kind of partnership between the private sector and the UN system. The partnership will select highly innovative projects that promote exchange and cross-cultural understanding, and hence make a vital contribution to safety and peace in societies around the world. The ten most outstanding projects in the area of intercultural understanding will be recognized for the first time in an award ceremony held during the fourth Annual UNAOC Forum in Doha (Qatar) in December 12th of this year.



President Jorge Sampaio, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, recently stated, “To succeed in bridging our world’s growing divides, we need to launch cutting-edge programs that provide shared solutions to our common problems. Through the Award for Intercultural Innovation, both the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group are fostering imagination and creativity to build collaboration among cultures.”



“Together with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, we are now taking our efforts in this field to a new level,” comments Harald Krüger, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG and Patron of the Award for Intercultural Innovation. “The cooperation with UNAOC allows us to pool strengths, to reach even more people and to increase the efficiency of our international commitment.”



Through its commitment to social entrepreneurship, with programs such as the BMW Group Award and numerous others, the BMW Group has promoted cooperative dialogue between different cultures for decades.



In addition to the award itself and the prize money that comes with it, the winners will be able to draw on support and consulting services from the ‘World Intercultural Facility for Innovation’ (WIFI), a program initiated by the UNAOC in cooperation with the BMW Group. The WIFI will help award-winning projects become more efficient and expand, as well as enable their transfer to other contexts or settings. The specific support that projects receive will depend on their individual demands.



Deadline for applications: 16 October 2011

Organizations can submit their proposals by 16 October 2011. Application forms are available for download at www.interculturalinnovation.org.



For additional information, please refer to www.interculturalinnovation.org.



The BMW Group

The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI, Husqvarna Motorcycles and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 25 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.



During the financial year 2010, the BMW Group sold 1.46 million cars and more than 110,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for 2010 was euro 4.8 billion on revenues amounting to euro 60.5 billion. At 31 December 2010, the BMW Group had a workforce of approximately 95,500 employees.



The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last seven years.



Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) is an initiative of the Office of the United Nation’s Secretary-General, whose objective is to promote the understanding and the collaboration between countries and peoples across cultural and religious borders. Additionally, the organizations works against forces which fuel polarization and extremism. The UNAOC was brought to life on the initiative of Spain and Turkey in 2005. The organization is under the patronage of the United Nations and is led by the former Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio as ‘High Representative.’