GE Foundation

Public Policy

GE Foundation promotes constructive dialogue among key stakeholders to enhance, shape and support GE Foundation engagement.

We also support efforts to identify and learn about next-generation public policy issues with the goal to develop and propose novel solutions to policy dilemmas.

Public Policy Funding Priorities

• Globalization — Create conditions for the free flow of goods, services, capital and people, including strengthening legal institutions that support trade and investment.
• Human Rights — Strengthen business understanding of human rights issues in the global marketplace.
• Climate Change — Analyze the consequences of a low-carbon future, including how to reconcile what can be conflicting interests in climate change and energy security with economic growth.
• Rule of Law — Enhance global capacity building in areas of commercial law, intellectual property rights protection, legal and judicial capacity building and legal/citizen rights.

Current Programs

• U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund

  This program recognizes that American business has a major stake in China’s future social stability and advancement of living standards. This long-term commitment aims to increase the transparency, responsiveness and effectiveness of the Chinese legal system by aligning resources, narrowing focus and quantifying value. GE support will ensure that the fund can continue to identify worthy cooperative China rule-of-law programs to significantly scale up and expand the scope of this initiative.

  • Funding principles: globalization, human rights, rule of law
  • Grant time period: Three years
• United Nations Global Compact

  This is the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative providing a framework for businesses committed to aligning their operations and strategies with principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. GE Foundation gave a grant to the organization to research human rights dilemmas for multinational corporations in emerging and developing countries. Best practices and case studies for multinational companies will come out of this research.

  • Funding principles: human rights, rule of law
  • Grant time period: Three years
• Partners for Democratic Change

  This is an international organization committed to building sustainable local capacity to advance civil society and a culture of change and conflict management worldwide. GE Foundation gave a grant to the organization to identify, select and train social and entrepreneurial leaders to establish sustainable national centers dedicated to applying professional conflict and change methodologies that address contentious policy issues and/or conflicts within or between government, business and civil society sectors.

  • Funding principles: rule of law, globalization
  • Grant time period: Three years
• The U.S.–Vietnam Education Foundation

  For more than a decade, this foundation has worked to assist Vietnam’s integration into the global economy. The grant that GE Foundation made will fund three full-time Fellows, training workshops, reference materials and policy seminars in an effort to make the legal system in Vietnam more responsive, transparent and effective.

  • Funding principles: rule of law, globalization
  • Grant time period: One year

Additional Public Policy Efforts Supported in 2007

• The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars — Support for the GE Americas Regional Integration Internship Program
  

  This program introduces students to the U.S. capital, where they learn first-hand at an organization operating in the context of an increasingly interdependent world.

• AccountAbility — Support toward responsible competitiveness and climate change

  The proposed work involves business and multi-stakeholder dialogue on the topic, mobilization of existing research on “green” economic opportunities, and the creation of an index of the country’s preparedness to compete in a low-carbon economy.

• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) — Support for defining materiality and boundaries

  This work identifies current practices in defining materiality and setting report boundaries, and outstanding questions facing report preparers and users.

• Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics — Support toward the competitiveness of U.S. firms

  The principal purpose is to examine the issue of U.S. competitiveness from a number of perspectives but most importantly and centrally from the standpoint of U.S.-based firms.

• Center for Strategic and International Studies — Support for The China Futures Initiative

  CSIS convenes leaders from the private sector and policy community to discuss key regional developments and provide actionable recommendations.

• The German Marshall Fund of the United States — Support for the Transatlantic Fellow of the Economics Policy Program

  This program aims to educate key decision makers and foster debate between policy analysts in Europe and the United States on trade and economic issues.

• Brookings Institution — Support toward energy security drivers of international security policy

  The principal purpose is to support research to help U.S. leaders better understand the energy security interests and actions of key countries that drive global energy markets.

• The Institute for the Study and Development of Legal Systems — Support for the Bangalore Alternative Dispute Resolution Project

  The goal of this project is to support legal capacity building in Bangalore, India through the development of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs.