The United Nations Global Compact Network Nigeria has underscored the need for the promotion of human rights in order to advance the UN guiding principles on fundamental freedom.
UN Global Compact Network Nigeria is a business-led sustainability initiative of the United Nations Global Compact that was inaugurated in Nigeria in 2007 during the Nigerian Economic Summit.
Naomi Nwokolo, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network Nigeria, gave the advice in her welcome address at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Business and Human Right Roundtable (NBHR22), on Wednesday.
The roundtable themed: “The implementation of the national action plan for business and human rights in Nigeria” was organized by Global Compact Network Nigeria in collaboration with Global Rights, both NGOs, from Oct. 26 to 27, 2022.
Nwokolo, also Chair of the African Regional Network Council, said, “It is critical that steps must be taken to foster constructive relationships with local, national, and international institutions, to advance human rights.
“At the national level, sharing of expertise, methodologies. and best practices are very beneficial.
“Let us move more quickly to implement types of institutions and laws that support individuals in asserting their rights.
“We must approach human rights promotion as a component of a global initiative to advance the UN Guiding Principles, referred to as ‘internationally recognized human rights’.
“This includes those guaranteed by the International Bill of Human Rights.
“These stands for rights are outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
She explained such rights to mean that businesses should ensure freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining as well as the abolition of all forms of forced or compulsory labor.
Identifying the abolition of child labor, abolition of employment and occupation discrimination as some of the issues, Nwokolo said that businesses often violated human rights when they failed to accord them such enough consideration.
She further said that the UN Nations Global Compact had launched its Business and Human Rights Accelerator, a six-month learning program to equip companies with the requisite knowledge and promote human rights.
“With such extensive corporate human rights due diligence procedure, businesses can move away from a risks-to-business approach and toward a risks-to-people approach.
“On SDG Goal 5, it is worth noting that gender equality is a basic human right; Gender equality is critical to all aspects of a healthy society, from poverty reduction to promoting men’s and women’s health, education, protection and well-being.
“Nigeria must achieve sustainable development goals to ensure women’s full and effective participation in political, economic and public life and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making.
“Although government policies can help close persistent gender gaps in economic participation and pay, the private sector can help close structural inequalities.
“At this juncture, I call on companies to sign up for the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a primary vehicle for corporate delivery of gender equality dimensions of the 2030 agenda and the UN SDGs,” she added.
In a remark, Cynthia Muffuh, Head of Human Rights and Gender, United Nations Global Compact, underscored the need for collaborative efforts by both public and private sectors to achieve targets.
According to Muffuh, it is apt that the UN and the private sector are working closely with many stakeholders towards achieving common goals on human rights, peace, security, and sustainable development.
She said, “This will not be possible, if it were not for us at Global Compact, in terms of its principles and the UN guiding principles on human rights, which is why we are here.
“Companies that join the UN Global Rights join the principles in the area of human rights, labor and in environment and anti-corruption, which are rights championed by the Global Compact.
“However, there is a gap between business aspirations and business action on human rights, therefore, an urgent need for governments to drive action on human rights.
“The great way to achieve this is to develop a national action plan for human rights; this will give governments an opportunity to review plans on human rights, identify gaps and increase measures to effectively achieve targets.”
The highpoint of the event was an overview of NBH2R, reflections, comments, question and answer session, and discussion centered on human rights, labor, environment, anti-corruption and understanding the National Action Plan.
The event was attended by stakeholders from Global Rights, National Human Rights Commission, Spaces for Change, CSR-in-Action, as well as the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
The UN-Global Compact inaugurated its two-year UN program to promote United Nations Global Compact’s Ten Principles and SDGs in Nigeria and contribute to the implementation of the United Nations’ broader development goals.
