Peer learning initiative on business and human rights for national human rights institutions

Busy street in Nairobi, Kenya - from piqsels.com

An initiative to strengthen peer learning and engagement of NHRIs on business and human rights in Eastern-Southern Africa.

Purpose

Established in June 2020, the objective of this initiative is to strengthen engagement of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) on business and human rights (BHR) through peer learning and knowledge exchange. Focused on the Eastern-Southern Africa region, participants include representatives from the NHRIs of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia.

The difference we make

The Institute has collaborated with and supported a number of the peer learning members on the topic of BHR. This has included work on baseline assessments and other research and engagement processes, as part of working towards the development of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights; as well as capacity building on BHR utilising the blended learning course on BHR for NHRIs developed by the Institute and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions.

Through these bilateral engagements, sister NHRIs expressed a strong interest in increased peer learning among NHRIs in the region, to facilitate exchange on BHR and identify opportunities for collective knowledge generation and interventions. Responding to this, the Institute co-developed the peer learning initiative with NHRI partners.

Initiative activities

To date, core activities of the peer learning initiative have focused on:

Providing a space for peer learning among Eastern-Southern African NHRIs on National Action Plans on BHR, including specific topics therein;
Generating policy- and practice-oriented research outputs that can be used by NHRIs and other actors in the region to support national implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on BHR; and
Fostering NHRI engagement on access to remedy for business-related human rights abuses.

The initiative also collaborated to develop a joint submission to the UN Working Group on BHR UNGPs+10 ‘next decade’ project focused on developing a roadmap for the next ten years of implementation of BHR.

In 2021, the peer learning initiative will continue to focus collective efforts on its priority themes: tools for monitoring of business activities; the intersection of human rights and environmental protection; access to remedy for business-related human rights abuses; and gender as a cross-cutting theme.