This virtual event, over two days - 7-8 June 2023, was organised by the AIM-Progress Africa hub, facilitated by Partner Africa.
It was open to suppliers in the African region who have business relationships with the AIM-Progress members. Attendees were from over 30 countries, with 167 on day 1 and 130 on day 2.
Speakers
Agenda & session summary:
Day 1 - 7 June - Setting the foundation - an introduction to human rights due diligence
The aim of the session was to gain an understanding of human rights due diligence; what it entails and how to develop policies and practices to ensure that human rights risks are mitigated in your operations and supply chain,
The objectives of the session included:
Day 2 - 8 June - how to spot, prevent, remediate child labour; climate change human rights & just transition
Child Labour - This session looked at what constitutes child labour and hazardous labour and how business activities can impact on the rights of children. It then looked into how businesses can mitigate child labour including how businesses can increase supply chain visibility and transparency, how to engage and enforce child labour policies and how to respond when child labour is identified. ThE session had a guest speaker from Touton who shared what activities they do when they identify child labour including Households & farmers’ remediation activities, community level remediation and child level remediation.
Just Transition - This session aimed to raise awareness of the ’Just Transition’ approach to climate change & consider how this applies to human rights through sharing, demonstrate how African business supplying to the EU & UK can prepare for people centred climate action. It included post pandemic trends & policy landscape, explanations of the climate & human rights intersection. Prevented Ocean Plastics spoke about their initiatives with regards to recycling.
Some key take-aways
