JICA's First Knowledge Co-Creation Program on Business and Human Rights

Day：2024.02.08

event ｜

JICA conducted its first Knowledge Co-Creation Program on business and human rights for 8 government officers and judges from 7 developing countries who are responsible for formulating and implementing national human rights policies.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require states to fulfill their obligations to protect human rights in order to promote business that respects human rights. The purpose of this program was to share good practices and issues related to business and human rights policies and their implementation in line with the principles, and to help governments promote human rights protection.

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(Fieldwork in Minamata City)

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(Hybrid lecture by OECD)

Supervised by Miwa Yamada, Director-General of Inter-disciplinary Studies Center, IDE-JETRO, the program was implemented in cooperation with the Japanese government (Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and the Japanese private sector, and civil society (Business and Human Rights Lawyers Network Japan, General Support Union of Individual Affiliates, JP-MIRAI). The participants said they learned the importance of inter-ministerial coordination and multi-stakeholder consultations, initial action by the government, leadership of top management, and education to eliminate discrimination against victims. In particular, some of the participants commented that the visit to Minamata City strongly impressed them, as they learned about the social structure behind Minamata disease and heard directly from various stakeholders in government, business, and civil society. The Japanese lecturers also commented that they found the information on the various initiatives presented by the participants useful, which provided an opportunity for mutual learning.
This program also provided information on international initiatives with the cooperation of international organizations such as the ILO Office for Japan (memorandum of understanding on cooperation between JICA and the ILO Office for Japan on business and human rights), UNDP, and OECD (lecture on the National Contact Point based on the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct). It was the first case to utilize OECD's expertise in JICA's Knowledge Co-creation Program with the initiative of OECD Tokyo Centre, which expanded OECD's knowledge to non-OECD member countries.

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(Group photo)

JICA will continue to contribute to the improvement of sustainable business environments and international supply chains by enhancing the human rights protection capacity of governments in developing countries.

Outline of the Training：
Training Course Title: Business and Human Rights
Training period: January 14, 2024 - January 27, 2024
Participating countries: 7 countries (Cambodia, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Mexico, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand)
Number of participants: 8 (National Human Rights Commission, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, judges, etc.)