The Commission in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has organised a two-day training on Business and Human Rights aiming at empowering social economic actors with knowledge and skills necessary to integrate human rights considerations into their business practices.

By organising this training, the Commission intended to promote awareness through raising it among stakeholders about the importance of integrating human rights into business practices; knowledge sharing by facilitating the exchange of insights, experiences, and best practices among industry experts, policymakers, civil society representatives and academia.

In addition to that, the Commission wanted to establish networking that should foster connections and partnerships between businesses, civil society organizations, and governmental bodies to collectively address human rights challenges within business enterprises. Lastly, it was expected to formulate recommendations for enhancing human rights and promoting ethical practices in the business enterprises to align their standards and activities with human rights principles.

As business practices can impact negatively the enjoyment of human rights such as through unsafe working conditions, working without contractual agreement, irregular payment, poor wages, no social security benefits for employees, exploitative labour practices, etc, it is imperative to focus on standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for national and transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human right.

The training was very participative since there were fruitful discussions and participants developed recommendations for improving businesses adherence to human rights principles within their operations.

The training brought together 80 participants including delegates of government institutions, Managers of private companies and delegates of NGOs operating in the sector of business.