Multistakeholder Education, Governance and Consensus-Building

We conduct multistakeholder programs and provide expertise in public and private forums regarding the role of businesses, often in partnership with governments and civil society, to 

• protect human rights in their global services, operations and supply chains;

• advance the rule of law;

• promote inclusive and sustainable development in keeping with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We believe that the seven key recommendations listed below should be the focus of key stakeholders to encourage investment and promote sustainable development in the Northern Triangle. The following list includes recommendations for actions by business, civil society and governments.

1. Advance the Rule of Law

• Capacity building (including funding) and protections for civil society organizations will be essential to advancing the rule of law in this region. Governments, foundations and businesses should all contribute to this.[1]

• While robust and independent civil society is the foundation of the rule of law, good governance is the necessary outcome.

• Businesses thrive under the rule of law as do societies. 

2. Regional Trade Integration

• Negotiate trade rules that advance the integration of the Northern Triangle countries with the broader region.

3. Short Supply

• The apparel sector (along with agriculture) presents immediate opportunities to create decent jobs in the region through new investments. Properly implementing the CAFTA-DR short supply mechanism would substantially expand these opportunities for jobs and investments.

4.    Worker Rights

• The fair and comprehensive enforcement of labor laws in the region, along with related services to support labor law compliance, and constructive and sustainable labor relations, will be essential to creating decent jobs and investments in the region that can endure in the long term.

5.    Infrastructure

• Decrease congestion that results from poor road conditions, lack of adequate “FAST” lanes, and inconsistent customs working hours and procedures at border crossing and processing systems.

6.    Trade Facilitation

• Harmonize customs processes and port operations across the three Northern Triangle countries and beyond to advance broader trade integration.

• Adjust regulatory policies that hamper transfers from one free trade zone to another to better facilitate release of goods and distinguish between transfer items and new free zone admissions.

7.    Advance Gender Equity and Address Gender-Based Violence and Harassment

• Broad cultural shifts (through enhanced business, civil society and government programs) are needed to address gender-based violence and harassment in the region.

8.    Severe Weather Resilience

• Severe storms, which have become much more frequent in recent years, have done substantial damage in the region. There is an immediate need to build resilient infrastructure (e.g., dams to prevent flooding).

[1] Rachel Kleinfeld, Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012

These essential elements include but are not limited to:

• transparent, accountable, and democratic governance (including combating corruption);

• human rights and labor rights;

• internet freedom and digital rights and responsibilities;

• the rule of law.

This bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will increase funding and enable new programs to advance this agenda to over $3 billion. This is essential to responsible global businesses as they seek to protect themselves from corruption, eliminate human rights abuses (including forced labor) from their supply chains, advance gender equity, ensure that workers and communities benefit from their investments and trade around the world, and protect our shared environment.

Through four newly established flexible funds, the Democracy in the 21st Century Act will enable the United States to better meet the challenges of today such as digital authoritarianism, transnational corruption and foreign interference. This critical funding will be distributed among the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

BCGD believes in advancing inclusive and sustainable development across the globe – something that cannot be achieved without advancing the work of these four US government agencies.

Business Action for Human Rights

We speak out, share ideas and advocate on behalf of participating businesses (including before the Senate Human Rights Caucus), and bring together leading businesses with civil society organizations to discuss areas of cooperation enabling businesses to take effective action for human rights.

We led the Business Coalition for ILAB, which successfully advocated for full funding of the International Labor Affairs Bureau. ILAB is the US government agency that administers labor and human rights grant programs, while performing other functions that advance labor rights globally. We managed this coalition of businesses and trade associations and engaged in comprehensive bipartisan advocacy to support these appropriations. Legislation appropriating full funding of ILAB grant programs was signed into law by the President for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, and was expanded for fiscal year 2020.

ILAB funded programs support the fight against human trafficking, child and slave labor, gender-based violence, and they advance labor rights compliance around the world.

In addition to protecting essential human rights, ILAB programs help developing countries comply with labor rights requirements in trade agreements, such as USMCA, and American trade legislation that provides special trade preferences to support economic growth in developing countries.