Latest on Corporate Influence and Accountability (GPF) - Archive

Brussels, November 29, 2021

 

Subject: Urgent request to ensure a gender-responsive and effective legislation on human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) and corporate accountability 

 

Dear President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, 

Dear Vice-President Vera Jourová, 

Dear Commissioner Thierry  Breton, 

Dear Commissioner Helena Dalli, 

Dear Commissioner Didier Reynders, 

Dear Members of Parliament, 

Dear Council of the European Union Representatives,

 

November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) Day, is a day to pay tribute [...]

In 2014, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) mandated an intergovernmental working group to draft an international treaty for the protection of human rights in the global economy. Since then, the intergovernmental working group, which consists of governments, representatives of civil societies and business, has been meeting annually to negotiate the current status of the draft. The third revised draft constitutes the basis for negotiations during the seventh meeting of the working group from October 25 to [...]

A variety of approaches exists so far that attempt to ensure multinational enterprises’ compliance with human rights in all their business relationships. Workers’ representatives and their trade unions have agreed on more than 300 Global Framework Agreements with transnational corporations to strengthen workers' rights along global supply chains. Also, other corporate approaches such as CSR, social auditing and sector-specific approaches at national level have contributed to improved working conditions in particular in countries where there is only weak employee representation [...]

Time to overcome contradictions and hypocrisy in the COVID-19 crisis

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have greatly exacerbated national and global inequalities. Blatant examples are the unfair distribution of care work, relying mainly on women and poorly remunerated if at all, and the global disparity in the distribution of vaccines.

So far more than 60 percent of people in high-income countries have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but less than 2 percent [...]

Arab NGO Network for Development and Global Policy Forum - Session

IFIs have been promoting the role of the private sector in job creation and sustainable development, through limiting the role of the public sector, incentivizing PPPs and promoting the creation of an enabling environment for businesses and investments. Meanwhile, civil Society has been advocating for holding the private sector, as a development actor, accountable for human rights. Additionally, the current health crisis revealed more challenges related to the role [...]

A gendered approach to the upcoming EU corporate accountability law will help protect women's rights in global supply chains of European companies. Here’s how.

When the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, ceremoniously launched the Gender Equality Strategy: Striving for a Union of Equality last March, she declared that “gender equality is a core principle of the European Union, but it is not yet a reality.”

This much-anticipated strategy planned to integrate a gender perspective in all [...]

From October 26 to 30, 2020, the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (OEIGWG) met for the sixth time at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in Geneva. The discussions were based on the second revised draft presented by the Ecuadorian Chair of the working group in August 2020. The session was overshadowed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was held in a hybrid format, i.e. with [...]

Lessons from the global COVID-19 crisis

This is the fifth edition of the report Spotlight on Sustainable Development. Since 2016, we have published this report annually to assess not only the implementation of the 2030 Agenda but also the structural obstacles in its realization.

When we started to plan for this year’s report in Autumn 2019, mass protests were shaking a growing number of countries in various regions of the world. In Ecuador, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, in Egypt, Lebanon [...]

The world has become a patient. The new corona virus is a global medical riddle that governments, pharmaceutical companies and international organizations are trying to decipher in a unity rarely seen before. The level of cross-border exchange of data, research methods and evidence underlines the crucial role played by transnational communities of scientists* and experts*. With the development and the clinical testing of a vaccine, many hope that the virus will be all but contained, the rest a matter of [...]

Berlin, September 2020

In June 2014, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UNHRC) mandated an intergovernmental working group (Resolution 26/9) to develop an interna-tional instrument to regulate the activities of transnational and other corporations. The aim of the process is to close the legal gaps in the protection of human rights in the global economy that have emerged in the course of globali-zation. So far, in five rounds of negotiations, governments, legal experts and representatives of civil society [...]

Berlin, September 2020

In June 2014, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UNHRC) mandated an intergovernmental working group (Resolution 26/9) to develop an interna-tional instrument to regulate the activities of transnational and other corporations. The aim of the process is to close the legal gaps in the protection of human rights in the global economy that have emerged in the course of globali-zation. So far, in five rounds of negotiations, governments, legal experts and representatives of civil society [...]

22 JULY| ROSA LUXEMBURGSTIFTUNG ET AL.

An international study published by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Biba, Bread for the World, FIAN Germany, Forum on Environment and Development, INKOTA-netzwerk, IRPAD, PELUM Zambia, Tabio, and TOAM documents the dramatic negative impacts of the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) on small-scale food producers in the 13 African countries the initiative focuses on.

More information and download here

 

Related publication:

Corporate influence through the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa [...]

Position paper published by ASW –Aktionsgemeinschaft Solidarische Welt, Brot für die Welt, CorA-Netzwerk für Unternehmensverantwortung, FEMNET, FIAN Deutschland, Global Policy Forum, Marie-Schlei-Verein, materra, Plan International Deutschland, TERRE DES FEMMES, TransFair, WECF.

 

A joint letter from the World Health Organization and private business to the G-20 leaders on the response to COVID 19 and its economic fallout raises concerns.
The letter dated 23 March signed by the WHO Director-General, the Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Saudi Arabia chair of Business 20 (B20), a private sector grouping of G-20 was addressed to the G20 Heads of State and Government prior to their virtual summit on the. The letter states [...]

By Roberto Bissio*

versión en español.

The message could not have been clearer: "There is a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out nearly 5% of the world’s economy. A global pandemic on that scale would be catastrophic, creating widespread havoc, instability and insecurity.”

This prediction was published in September 2019, several months before the identification of the first Covid-19 patient, by [...]

Published by: the Treaty Alliance Germany

Berlin, October 2019

By Karolin Seitz

Published by: Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

Berlin/Bonn/Suva/Toronto, October 2019

By Jens Martens and Karolin Seitz

Published by: Bischöfliches Hilfswerk MISEREOR, Brot für die Welt-Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung e.V., Global Policy Forum

Aachen/Berlin/Bonn, September 2019

ISBN 978-3-943126-47-1

Transforming institutions – shifting power – strengthening rights Four years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda the world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries. But there are signs of change. Social movements have emerged worldwide, many with young people and women in the lead [...]

New York, 8 July 2019: “The world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries.”

“The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is not just a matter of better policies. It requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how power is vested, including through institutional and governance [...]

Working Paper

By Karolin Seitz, with substantial contributions from Barbara Adams, Laraine Mills and Jens Martens

Published by: Bischöfliches Hilfswerk MISEREOR, Brot für die Welt-Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung e.V., Global Policy Forum

Aachen/Berlin/Bonn/New York, February 2019

ISBN 978-3-943126-45-7

By Karolin Seitz

Published by: Bischöfliches Hilfswerk MISEREOR, Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung - Brot für die Welt, Global Policy Forum

Aachen/Berlin/Bonn, January 2019

By Armin Paasch, Karolin Seitz, Eva-Maria Reinwald, Maren Leifker, Julia Otten

Published by: Global Policy Forum

Bonn, January 2019

By Nicoletta Dentico and Karolin Seitz

Over the last two decades, the philanthropic sector has grown in terms of the number of foundations, the size of their annual giving, and the scope of their activities. Spending concentrates on certain selected areas, especially health, education, and nutrition. Civil society organizations, scientists, and the media have finally started to devote more attention and research to the growing influence of philanthropic foundations in global development, in particular with regard to the influential members [...]

To coincide with the World Health Summit and the Grand Challenges Conference of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Berlin, Global Policy Forum, Brot fuer die Welt, medico international, and MISEREOR invite you to discuss the benefits, risks and side-effects of the WHO’s engagement with philanthropic foundations, and reflect on how the WHO can be strengthened in order to fulfill its responsibilities. Speakers will include representatives from the German Ministry of Health, the WHO (tbc) and international civil society.