The World Jewellery Confederation Education Foundation (WJCEF) is a body established with the objective of financing and administering educational programmes, formulated and prepared by the World Jewellery Confderation and the United Nations, to promote the principles of CSR throughout the greater jewellery industry worldwide. The proposed purpose of these programmes is to educate members of the industry about how to engender the principles of CSR in the countries and/or constituencies in which they are active, and how to create and support initiatives at the grass-roots level through which the jewellery business assists in bringing about sustainable economic and social development.
WFCEF was formally registered in Berne in December 2008 as a non-profit foundation under Swiss law. According to the mission statement in the deed that was presented, its objective is to “conceptualise, develop and finance training manuals, courses, studies and working papers, educational and didactic tools, and other educational means to promote, increase and improve knowledge of social and economic corporate responsibility in the international jewellery industry and trade, within the scope of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.”
WJCEF’s services are open to all companies and associations associated with the international jewellery business. In the years since its establishment it has run programmes around the world, and played a key role in the establishment of the CSR Centre of Excellence for the jewellery and related industries in Antwerp, Belgium, together with the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR), and Belgian municipal, federal and private sector participants.