New guide makes it easy for companies to manage human rights

Understanding the local context in which companies do business is the single most important starting point for companies to get human rights right - and that is often no easy task.

But thenew Human Rights and Business CountryGuide is to provide this information for free and in a language that companies can relate to.

- The Country Guide enables local actors around to world to come together and jointly address the most pressing human rights challenges faced by business today, said project manager Paloma Munoz Quick from the Danish Institute at the launch of the guide in Geneva.

Honoring the UN principles

In line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the CountryGuide covers the full spectrum of human rights and aims to engage businesses of all sizes and sectors in taking up the corporate responsibility to respect human rights.

- Our hope is that the Country Guide will put human rights and business principles into practice in diverse contexts around the world - from Denmark to Zimbabwe, said Paloma Munoz Quick.

Yet the CountryGuide is more than a tool for companies. The Guiding Principles have clarified the respective roles of government and business and the Country Guide can help all actors operationalize these principles in a national context.

- TheGuide provides information that can be used by all stakeholders - businesses, civil society, government, labour and communities - to dialogue on how business negatively affects human rights and possible solutions, said Mutuso Dhliwayo, director of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), the CountryGuide partner in Zimbabwe.

The Country Guide is also supported by SIDA, the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency, and launches withseven country guides growing to 40 by 2016. Explore country guides on globalnaps.org.