Corporate Accountability

Donors are increasingly turning to the private sector as a partner in the promotion of gender equality.

It is ever more evident that the private sector has social and environmental responsibilities, and there are some examples of corporations improving their practices in this respect. However, there are also many examples of corporate abuse, which must be acknowledged and dealt with if progress is to be made.

GADN recommends that governments

• Support the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on the development and implementation of a gender-responsive, legally binding instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with respect to human rights.

• Develop gender-responsive national action plans to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, setting out the actions needed to ensure gender-responsive human rights due diligence throughout global supply chains.

• Call for the end of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms that undermine government capacity to regulate and protect against harmful practices of multinational corporations.

• Ensure that all corporations pay a fair share of taxes in each country in which they operate and undertake gender equality, human rights and environmental impact assessments on the tax incentives they offer corporations.

• Encourage corporate representatives to promote best practice in their own sector, including by refraining from using tax havens and reforming their tax strategies to pay a fair amount of tax in each country in which they operate.

More on the issue

• Corporate power and women’s economic justice Summary of a webinar co-hosted by GADN and AWID.

• Integrating a gender perspective into the legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises GADN supported Statement by the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG)  on  corporate-related human rights abuses. (2017)

• The GADN supported Women’s Working Groups on Financing for Development Declaration. (2015)

📷 Teacher speaking to students, Thailand.