Inclusive Leadership and Gender-Responsive Human Rights Due Diligence: Tackling GBVH through Collective Action and Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement

Background 

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This session will explore how businesses across Africa are embracing inclusive leadership and gender equality as cornerstones of responsible business conduct. It will examine how companies are integrating gender considerations into their human rights due diligence (HRDD) processes to identify, assess, and address risks of gender-based discrimination, exclusion, and harm-specifically gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) moving from aspirational pledges to measurable action and remedy.

Drawing on ETI’s experience in commercial agriculture supply chains in Kenya and South Africa, the session will explore how Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement (MSE) can practically help surface hidden risks, strengthen prevention and remedy for GBVH, and build trust-based, survivor-centred responses. The session will also highlight the value of collective action and sectoral alignment, drawing lessons from co-developed GBVH principles that expand leverage and impact across value chains.

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Key Objectives

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• Illustrate how gender-responsive HRDD improves business outcomes and mitigates risk.

• Promote the use of accountability tools such as the WEPs Gender Gap Analysis and ETI’s GBVH principles.

• Strengthen collaboration between companies, CSOs, and stakeholders on gender-responsive action.

• Highlight the value of collective action and shared responsibility to address GBVH as a salient risk.

• Share lessons on MSE and tackling GBVH in practice.

 

Guiding Questions

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• How can gender-responsive HRDD drive equitable representation and remedy for gender-related harms? (UNGC)

• What roles does MSE play in enabling companies to effectively carry out gender-responsive HRDD to address GBVH in practice? (ETI/company member)

• How can collective action between business, trade unions, and civil society address GBVH effectively? (ETI)

• Which accountability tools and sectoral frameworks best support women’s leadership and empowerment? (UNGC)

• What are the key lessons from African-led innovations in tackling GBVH across value chains?

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Background to the Discussion

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Under the UNGPs’ Pillars 2 and 3, companies have a responsibility to integrate gender analysis into their HRDD, ensuring inclusive governance, equitable workplace cultures, and effective remedy for gender harms. The UNGC Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) provide a framework to benchmark and accelerate progress.

ETI and its members recognize GBVH in agricultural supply chains persists despite compliance efforts. GBVH remains pervasive, underreported, and inadequately addressed. Tackling GBVH requires moving beyond compliance-based or top-down approaches toward inclusive, systemic strategies grounded in meaningful stakeholder engagement (MSE). Through shared responsibility, sectoral alignment, and coordinated efforts, companies, workers, trade unions, civil society, and buyers can expand leverage and impact to address entrenched risks and power imbalances.