NIR International Council of Swedish Industry
The International Council of Swedish Industry (NIR), headquartered in Stockholm, is a non profit organisation governed collectively by several of the largest Swedish internationally active companies and organisations.
NIR works with a long-term perspective to promote conducive conditions for business and socio-economic development. Its operations aim at responding to challenges specific to each country, typically by improving structural conditions for business and economic development. NIR’s experience since 1960 of working with international challenges to industrial development and its extensive network of expertise are the core of our programmes, which typically involve strengthening the capacity of local organised private sector as a responsible driver of change on a wide range of issues.
The country presence of NIR is guided by a combination of complexity and long-term market potential. The types of challenge depend on the local context. Often, this has meant that NIR is active in countries considered by European business to be frontier or “pre-emerging” markets. In other cases, engagement on a particular issue or with a regional perspective are the guiding principles. NIR has or has recently had activities in Subsaharan Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia and Latin America.
NIR’s activities range across a number of areas, from facilitating labour market dialogue to industry transformation and exchange and enabling workplace programmes, but a condition for success in almost every case is a representative, transparent collective private sector, capable of voicing its shared vision and concerns. The consistent support of DECP to private sector organisations is therefore clearly in most cases working towards the same ends as the activities of NIR. Through their support to local business associations, DECP and NIR often have the same partner organisations or work in related areas of business environment improvement. At the moment, the two organisations are not running any joint projects, but have on occasion participated in each other’s activities.
Supporting the private sector as a driver of development.
