US Releases First National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct
On December 16, the United States published its first National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct, following a thorough two-year process that included consultations with stakeholders from around the country, as well as significant coordination among federal agencies, including USAID. The National Action Plan promotes responsible business conduct for U.S. companies operating abroad.
Responsible business conduct is the idea that businesses can perform well while doing good and that governments should set and facilitate the conditions for this to take place. Central to this concept is emphasizing positive contributions businesses make to economic, environmental, and social progress, while recognizing and avoiding adverse impacts of business conduct and addressing them when they occur.
The National Action Plan outlines how the U.S. government, business, labor, civil society, foreign governments, and other stakeholders will strengthen efforts to work together to promote high standards of open and accountable business practices, respect for human rights, and a commitment to transparency.
Land Rights and Responsible Investment
USAID has long been a leader in promoting responsible investment in agriculture in the developing world. Through initiatives like the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, we are partnering with the private sector to accelerate investment in food production while reducing hunger and extreme poverty.
These initiatives sometimes involve land-based investments in countries where the systems that govern land and property rights are weak. Acquiring rights to use or own land in these environments can carry substantial risks. Unclear, undocumented or overlapping claims to land, lack of transparency, and the potential for land-based conflict can undermine investment projects and threaten the rights and livelihoods of local communities.
In response to requests from the U.S. business community, USAID has been working with our partners in the private sector, civil society, and the donor community to develop practical guidance on best practices for making land-based investments more inclusive, responsible, and sustainable.
We are excited to launch two partnerships to use these guidance tools in live investments. Starting in February, we will be providing technical assistance to private sector partners investing in the production of cassava and selected other crops in Mozambique and of cocoa in Cameroon. USAID will support these businesses in investing responsibly, while capturing and sharing lessons for other investors.
USAID is also supporting responsible business conduct by publishing updated, in-depth land governance country profiles. These provide detailed information on a country’s land laws and policies, land markets, and other land-related topics. These profiles are an important tool for businesses in making responsible land-based investment decisions.
USAID is also launching the second version of the successful Massive Open Online Course on Land Tenure and Property Rights. This free resource is open to the public and provides in-depth training on understanding and overcoming land-related challenges. The new course will launch on January 23.
Countering Trafficking in Persons
As an effort to engage the private sector to counter human trafficking, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG Center) pioneered a new initiative called Supply Unchained to better identify and counter human trafficking in global supply chains. Through Supply Unchained, a wide range of stakeholders — corporations, government agencies, civil society organizations and philanthropic foundations — responded to our call for innovative ways to collect real-time data from workers and communities closest to the problem to co-create solutions.
USAID has worked with these stakeholders to develop three initial projects in different sectors that will help all of us begin to better identify patterns, pinpoint those most at risk and as a result, prevent new cases of human trafficking from occurring in the first place.
For example, in India, USAID is partnering with GoodWeave International to transform its monitoring and certification methodology into a scalable, transferable model for mapping, analyzing, and providing real-time visibility into unregulated supply chains. Target Corporation and Skoll Foundation have joined on as partners in this effort. Target is allowing its supply chain for carpets in India to serve as a proving ground for this initiative and has also committed to retail GoodWeave certified carpets in its U.S. department stores. Target expressed interest in using the new tools developed through Supply Unchained for other products. This, in turn, will also help advance social and economic development in the communities where Target sources its products. Supply Unchained is now viewed as a model for identifying new opportunities for innovation and public-private partnerships relating to supply chain transparency and monitoring.
For more information about the National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct, visit www.land-links.org/document/national-action-plan-responsible-business-conduct/
For more information on USAID’s work supporting responsible land-based investment, visit: www.land-links.org/responsible-land-based-investment/
For more information on USAID’s work to counter human trafficking, visit: https://www.usaid.gov/trafficking
