Implementing the guiding principles in Zimbabwean companies

The report draws upon extensive research and interviews with companies in Harare and is a result of the partnership with the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA). The main findings are sobering: Few companies in the Zimbabwean retail and banking sectors have made any explicit commitment to the Guiding Principles. Social programs, where they exist, are mostly ad hoc and marketing-driven, without a comprehensive consideration of risk or any robust (or even nominal) follow-up.

We see this in many of the countries that participates in the collaboration of the Country Guide: Companies that communicate their social programs widely, but do not back them up with a good-faith examination of their actual impacts. It’s good PR for companies to give scholarships, or sponsor a school or hospital. It is harder, and less publicity-attracting, to carefully consider how the company affects the rights of their workers, consumers and communities.

The retail industry, for example, employs large numbers of low- and semi-skilled workers, often for long hours, late into the night and under conditions that leave them vulnerable to abuse by managers. In many communities, the local retail store is the only provider of food, water and other necessities. This bestows upon retail stores, and their managers, powers that can be profoundly positive—or profoundly negative. The banking sector, similarly, provides vital capital to small business owners and individuals. In Zimbabwe, the decision not to grant a loan may expose customers to the loss of their home, livelihoods or even survival.

The analysis reveals that companies in these sectors are not, as yet, taking social impacts into consideration in their operations. The retail and banking sectors, not only in Zimbabwe, must come to grips with the fact that they are human rights actors, whether or not they like to consider themselves as such. We hope this report begins a discussion by actors in these industries of their actual impacts, and how they can begin to address them.