The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) participated in the VII Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean. There, they presented the digital app MAPE Progress App as a solution focused on guaranteeing due diligence on Human Rights in artisanal and small-scale mining communities, and strengthen their resilience facing risks associated.
“Human Rights must be a commonplace for all stakeholders and should be conceived as a space for inclusive dialog, a co-building space in which in overlooked stakeholders also make a contribution.”
Additionally, in this space, Christophe highlighted the importance of thinking about the small-scale mining organizations as companies that have to be aware and respect Human Rights, even in their particular contexts, not only big companies.
MAPE Progress App
MAPE Progress App is a technological platform that ARM develops in tandem with BetterChain, which aims to collect and visualize data of artisanal and small-scale organizations to monitor the continuous improvement of their mining, environmental, social, and economic practices.
This digital solution focuses on the implementation of due diligence. The App allows identifying and assessing the risks that mining communities face according to the criteria of the OECD Due Diligence, and the assessment requirements of the CRAFT Code, the Fairmined Standard, and the Forest Smart Mining Standard.
In 2022, this App will be pilot-tested in Peru, Guyana, and Suriname as part of the Alliance for Responsible Mining Project within the framework of the Artisanal Mining Grand Challenge, organized by Conservation X Labs.
This App aims to empower mining communities in their formalization and continuous improvement processes, as well as to provide transparent, traceable information to the other stakeholder in the supply chain.
The Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights
The event was organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia – UNHCHR, and the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, along with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – OECD, and with the support of the European Union, the Ombudsman’s Office in Colombia, the Universidad Externado, and the Colombian Government.
Within this space, focused on the accountability for responsible business behavior, topics on tendencies, challenges, and good practices to prevent and tackle the impact of companies on Human Rights, were approached.
The Regional Forum has become a critical dialog space in companies and Human Rights for over half a decade, and it is one of the most essential encounters on Human Rights on the American Continent.