Interpretation is provided in English, French and Spanish.Organized by NomoGaia, BSR and the Danish Institute for Human RightsBrief description of the session:Community engagement in HRIA focuses on 'rightsholders' - the individuals whose human rights are likely to be affected by an operation. Identifying and engaging with rightsholders requires trust building in all contexts. However, trust is harder to obtain and the costs of failure are steeper with particularly vulnerable populations.
This session considers good practice in rightsholder engagement in sensitive contexts, building on the experiences of affected rightsholders to both validate and challenge the practices of even leading companies. A rightsholder, scholar, practitioner and company viewpoint will be probed during the round-table session.
Session objectives:- Draw out consensus on what constitutes good practice in rightsholder engagement
- Delve into the barriers for best practice resulting from community distrust, ongoing state repression, lack of corporate expertise/leverage, social marginalization, etc
Key discussion questions:What should corporate actors to do differently to ensure their community engagement is meaningful with vulnerable rightsholder groups in challenging contexts?
What can they do if the initial approach is not successful?
Format of the session:This roundtable discussion will start with brief descriptions of rightsholder engagement processes at HRIAs for companies ENI and Diageo. Then the practitioners supporting those HRIAs will describe challenges and successes in rightsholder engagement, followed by analytical questioning from the researcher/scholar perspective. A roundtable discussion session will follow, before an audience-driven Q&A is integrated.
Background to the discussionThis discussion draws on the unique experiences of rightholders as well as speakers who have either engaged directly with affected rightsholders in fragile contexts or who have conducted thorough scholarship on meaningful HRDD. It aims to tackle complex questions of how to connect with rightsholders who are reluctant to be critical or express personal opinions, fearing state (or other) retribution. It challenges the assumption that rightsholders are eager to engage with companies or are prepared to discuss the effects of corporate activities on their lives, and it examines ways to overcome such barriers. It considers the possibility that companies might initially struggle to meaningfully engage rightsholders but can create long-term approaches to build trust.
