The 3rd African Business and Human Rights Forum has ended in Nairobi, Kenya, under the theme: “Promoting Responsible Business Conduct in a Rapidly Changing Context.”

The three-day program brought together stakeholders from across Africa who took stock of progress and discussed challenges and opportunities for promoting responsible business and human rights conduct and corporate accountability in the region.

It was co-organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Working Group and UNICEF, in close collaboration with local and regional, continental and international actors.

Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA), a human right focused non-profit-making organization operating in West-Africa, was represented at the forum by its Legal Officer, Mustapha Mahamah, and co-hosted a side session on access to remedies as provided under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines.

This year, ACA joined OECD-Watch to co-host a session at the sidelines of the conference to foster policy dialogue and peer-to-peer learning on responsible business conduct (RBC) and the human rights implications of the emerging African and global regulatory and policy landscape in Africa, generating crucial insights as well as key recommendations for the adoption of strong regulatory and policy frameworks and business models that promote ethical and sustainable practices, in line with internationally agreed norms and principles.

Outcomes

At the end of the forum, different ways of using OECD guidelines were developed. These included a big push to move from voluntary initiatives and standards to hard law and policies on corporate accountability.

The EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive was a big topic for discussion, with participants exploring both the challenges it may result in for African businesses as well as the opportunities it may present to raise the bar for accountability across value chains between the EU and Africa.