Responsible business conduct in Sub-Saharan Africa

Fostering UNGPs implementation at country level and in the energy and digital transitions.

Purpose

This two-year project focuses on promoting and implementing responsible business conduct in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Specifically, the project supports the implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) through national processes in Ethiopia and Tanzania. This may include activities such as business and human rights baseline studies and support to processes for the development of national action plans on business and human rights. In implementing the project, the Danish Institute for Human Rights (the Institute) will collaborate with local project partners and relevant state, business and civil society actors.

The project also has a sector focus at the regional level, to allow a deep dive to embed human rights in two economic sectors which are currently undergoing significant transitions, namely energy (i.e. the transition to renewable energies) and Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) (i.e. the transition towards greater use of digital technologies in the region). This work will include scoping studies to identify salient human rights issues and multi-stakeholder dialogue to develop corresponding policy recommendations.

Through these complementary country and sector components the project seeks to promote and strengthen implementation of the UNGPs and realisation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.

The difference we make

The Institute has developed and published an influential National Action Plans Toolkit, which has been widely used by governments and other stakeholders in designing and undertaking NAPs processes.

The Institute has supported a number of local partners in various countries around the world in using the toolkit. As to a sector-approach, the Institute has collaborated with partners to develop and implement a unique sector-wide impact assessment (SWIA) methodology, which takes a holistic view on the human rights impacts of an entire economic sector. For example, with regard to ICT, the Institute supported the SWIA on the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in Myanmar, which uncovered human rights impacts linked to the fast-growing penetration of digital technologies in the country. The Institute is also working with a number of companies and experts on developing practical approaches to assessing the human rights impacts of digital business activities.

Through this project, the Institute will draw on these methodologies and approaches to support local partner organisations in UNGPs implementation at the national level, as well as to identify and address the human rights implications of the digital and energy transitions in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

Project activities

In 2020-2021, project activities focused on business and human rights scoping studies and stakeholder engagement, for both the country and sector components of the project. These were developed through research and dialogue with relevant state, business and civil society stakeholders, as well as engagement with local project partners.

In 2022, project activities will focus on multi-stakeholder dialogues, focusing on the energy and digital transitions respectively, with the purpose to collaboratively identify salient human rights issues and respective policy recommendations for addressing these. Activities will also include technical support to local partners in Tanzania and Ethiopia to support their work on priority business and human rights issues. Lessons learned from national and regional dialogue processes and activities will be shared through publications, stakeholder outreach and reporting to relevant regional and international business and human rights fora.

VIDEO: On 25 November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MFA), DanChurchAid (DCA), and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) held an engaging stakeholder debate on Multi-stakeholder strategies to strengthen business and human rights efforts in East Africa. The debate took place in conjunction with the 9th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights and in the context of two projects on the topic funded by the MFA (through the Permanent Mission of Demark in Geneva) and implemented by DCA and the DIHR.