Human Rights and Governance

Advancing Human Rights and Governance

How Businesses Can Help Achieve the SDGs for Refugees

Following on from Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019, Daphne Jayasinghe of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), reflects on how businesses can best support refugees to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She discusses the role of job creation in driving forward SDG progress for refugees and the value of cross-sectoral collaboration. She also offers an opportunity for businesses to support refugee inclusion in the SDG Agenda ahead of the SDG Summit taking place in September this year.
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New Fund to Address Social Isolation Through Technology Closing Soon

Social isolation can affect people at any stage of their life and technology has a unique power to prevent this, bringing people together and redefining connection. Nesta Challenges’ Tech to Connect challenge seeks to offer civil society organisations support in helping to build more connected communities and reduce social isolation.
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Eliminating Violence and Harassment Just Became an Obligation for Businesses Worldwide

On June 21, 2019, the International Labour Organization (ILO) voted overwhelmingly to adopt a Convention on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. This represents an important step forward on strengthening protections for all workers around the world against violence and harassment.
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We Finally Have an Official Climate Emergency. But is that the full picture?

From climate change to climate crisis and now a climate emergency, the growing debate around the language used for some of our biggest global challenges is missing the most important word for addressing them: resilience.​
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SURVEY: Advancing Gender Equality by Engaging Men as Allies Survey

This survey forms part of the Business Fights Poverty Challenge: How can business advance gender equality across the value chain by engaging men as allies? The objective of this survey is to engage the Business Fights Poverty network of members and other experts in order to collectively benefit from our shared knowledge and experience.
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How Can Business Advance Gender Equality Across the Value Chain by Engaging Men as Allies?

Men have a critical role to play in achieving gender equality. What is less clear is what this might mean in practice for organisations in their approach to advance gender equality. A new Business Fights Poverty Challenge will explore how businesses and organisations are advancing gender equality within their organizations and across the value chain (spanning agriculture, supply, operations, distribution, retail and marketing), by effectively engaging men as allies for gender equality. 
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Not Just a Women’s Issue

What are some of the causes and consequences of violence against women? What role do men play? How can men unite to ensure the world is safer for everyone: women and girls, men and boys? Dr. Jackson Katz emphasizes how violent behaviour is tied to prevailing definitions of manhood and how movements to end gender inequality and violence against women benefit everyone, men and women alike.
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Managing Human Rights Risks: Embracing a More Robust Approach to Human Rights Risks in Supply Chains

Oxfam will lead a panel at Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 on its supermarket campaign, Behind the Barcodes, giving a platform to two influential supermarkets as well as perspectives from consumers, investors and a multi-stakeholder initiative on ethical trade. The top six UK supermarkets have already responded to the campaign. As more consumers and investors show their concern about these issues, more rapid progress will be made. ​
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How Can Consumer Goods Companies Harness Technology to Most Effectively Tackle Modern Slavery in their Global Supply Chains?

According to the Global Slavery Index, 40.3 million people are in some form of modern slavery, including 24.9 million in forced labour. 71% of the total are women and girls. The ILO reports that US$150 billion of illegal profits are generated by forced labour each year.
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How Harnessing Technology is Modernising Informal Retail in Emerging Markets to Deliver Social Impact

More than 61% of the world’s employed population – two billion people – earn their livelihoods in the informal sector, with 93% of the world’s informal employment occurring in emerging and developing countries. ​Yet informal retailers face complex challenges that prevent them from growing their business, stabilising the financial status of their business and their household income, and delivering a high level of service to their customers.
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Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 Connection Zone Lunch: Transcending Conflict to Fight Poverty

Conflict is a leading cause of poverty. Business can help bridge divides. Jerry Marshall is a co-founder of Transcend, Palestine, an “Impact Investment” technology company that transcends the Separation Wall by creating jobs unaffected by movement restrictions, building skills and hope, and developing relationships across the divide. The Transcend model could be adapted for replication elsewhere.
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PREVIEW #BFPOXFORD Keynote Profile: Monique Ntumngia, Winner of the Visa Everywhere Initiative

Be inspired by #BFPOxford Keynote speaker Monique Ntumngia, as she tells us more about the Green Girls Organisation, an award-winning clean energy technological innovation, which is creating a route towards economic independence for women and girls in Africa.
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Applying Technology to Help Eradicate Recruitment-Fee Debt Bondage in Global Supply Chains

A discussion paper on how technology can help to create closer, two-way connections between a company and the workers in its supply chain, which may in turn reveal hidden, illicit practices that contribute to modern slavery. With Nestle and WBCSD.
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How Can Business Tackle Gender Based Violence in the World of Work: A Toolkit for Action

A toolkit with a five-step framework to help businesses tackle gender-based violence in the world of work. With Primark, Anglo American, IFC and CARE.
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Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 Women’s Equality Zone Workshop: Preparing for possible new ILO regulation

CARE International UK are delighted to support the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on business and GBV and to host the Women’s Equality Zone at the Business Fights Poverty Oxford conference on 11 July 2019. ​
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Embracing Corporate Responsibility — For Social and Business Impact​

People often think Corporate Responsibility is a company’s response when it’s asked to do the right thing. But corporate responsibility is quite the opposite of a defensive move. It’s about growth, common sense, culture, impact, and most of all, values.
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Business Briefing on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work

A new report from Oxfam looks at Why unpaid care by women and girls matters to business, and how companies can address it ​
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Doing Nothing is Not an Option

Impact is a word we hear all the time in sustainability circles. Often when we talk about impacts, we’re talking about reducing the negative ones. Causing less damage. But that’s not nearly enough, says Arjen Boekhold of Game Changer Unltd. and known from Tony’s Chocolonely.
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Ivanka Trump Could Shape African Women’s Entrepreneurship

There were mixed views in February when U.S. “First Daughter” Ivanka Trump announced her Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative with US$50 million in start-up funds. Many were left to wonder: Is this a publicity stunt by the Trump administration, more of the usual one-size-fits-all U.S. foreign aid programs, or a real commitment to drive change?  
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Business Urge for a Robust New Global Law to End Violence and Harassment at Work

30 leading business networks and individual brands are calling for negotiators to deliver a new international law to end violence and harassment in the workplace that genuinely benefits business and employees world-wide.
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What do we mean by "Human Rights and Governance"?

Explore initiatives that advance human rights and promote effective governance, driving global change, enforcing equity and alleviating poverty.

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