On November 26th, Enel Américas - represented by its Auditing Manager and Compliance Official, Raffaele Cutrignelli – participated in the Eighth Annual United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in the session on "Corrupting the Human Rights Agenda: how business can leverage anti-corruption practices to advance respect for human rights", held at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
In this version of the forum, participants discussed issues such as the correlation between corruption and the violation of human rights, best business practices to reduce human rights abuses, and the role of Government in ensuring that Human Rights and Dignity are considered when doing business.
In this context, Enel Américas presented its anti-corruption experiences and practices implemented in South American countries in line with Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, justice and solid institutions), which are finally related and integrated within the Enel Group's vision and sustainability and human rights strategy.
Some of the key practices include Human Rights Due Diligence, which is applied annually across all countries; the initiatives executed by our providers and value chain to promote universal respect for Human Rights; as well as the work done with Multilateral Organizations, NGOs and Government entities in the different countries (like UNODC, International Transparency, Transparency Secretariats) in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Raffaele Cutrignelli highlighted, “Anti-corruption practices and policies can and must be leveraged and replicated in the efforts to promote and defend Human Rights, considering the correlation between these two issues. We must break up the silos within organizations and society, through synergistic work to share methodologies, information and processes . Companies can learn constructively from anti-corruption compliance programs, incorporating a risk-based vision and a control structure to effectively manage human rights in business activities.”
The United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights was held between 25-27 November of this year, and is the largest annual meeting in the world on business and human rights with more than 2,000 participants from government organizations, businesses, civil society, investors, UN entities, human rights institutions, unions, academia and communications media.