View this email in your browser

Introduction to IHRB’s 2023-2025 Strategy from our CEO & Deputy CEO

Many of the challenges that humanity faces today relate to the global marketplace and the role of business within it. This Strategy is our way of recognising the forces at play, and where and how IHRB might add the most value for positive human rights outcomes.

Three prevailing issues in the global context steer our thinking in fundamental ways. Entrenched inequality continues to deepen. Capital itself is part of this dynamic, and particularly problematic when businesses are unaccountable for their actions or inactions. Environmental disaster looms in terms of the climate crisis but also biodiversity loss, pollution, food security, and resilience. This at a time when the multilateral system is threatened in a way unseen since its creation in the aftermath of the Second World War.

If ever there was a time for innovative thinking, unusual alliances, new incentives, and forms of accountability, it is now.

IHRB’s 2023-2025 Strategy is informed by over a decade of experience since our founding in 2009, and is shaped by the knowledge and expertise of our global network of leaders, practitioners, and activists across business, finance, government, and civil society. It is a living document, capturing IHRB’s current thinking and approaches to making human rights part of everyday business around the world, but also expected to evolve over time.

This Strategy is also a directional document. It provides an overview of our:

• Our view of the global context in which our vision and long-term outcomes must be rooted
  

• Our mission-driven objectives of shaping policy, advancing practice, and strengthening accountability
  

• Our day-to-day approaches to delivering impact

More detailed strategies for each of our focus areas have also been developed which both inform and are informed by this strategic framework.

We would like to thank Declarative Labs for their design support to bring this document to life, our global team who drives our daily work, our Trustees and International Advisory Council for their ongoing strategic guidance, our funders for their enabling support, and our broad network of partners and allies working alongside us to make human rights part of everyday business.

In Case You Missed It

Debates on the future of the global economic and political order have not given adequate attention to the enormous influence of commercial entities that provide the financial, legal, and technical infrastructure and advice necessary for all businesses to operate. Read our Top 10 Business and Human Rights Issues for 2023 examining the roles and responsibilities of these influential sectors.