With the global spread of COVID-19, businesses are facing bankruptcy at an unprecedented scale, resulting in job losses for millions. In this context, confidence in the durability of the global economy, and by extension the norms and institutions that support it, are being tested like never before. How businesses respond to the crisis—especially those firms who receive state support to continue operations—will shape public attitudes towards the private sector for years to come.

In response to the global spread of COVID-19, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has designed a simple and accessible tool, the Human Rights Due Diligence and COVID-19: Rapid Self-Assessment for Business (C19 Rapid Self-Assessment), to help businesses consider and manage the human rights impacts of their operations. This non-exhaustive list of potential actions allows for rapid but continuous reflection on the human rights risks and impacts common to many industries.

The C19 Rapid Self-Assessment is offered to companies as a partial but informative view of human rights actions in the specific context of COVID-19. The listed actions are based on relevant provisions of UN Human Rights Treaties, the ILO Fundamental Conventions, and the UNGPs and are fully aligned with the values and principles set out in amfori’s BSCI Code of Conduct.

It is organised to present key actions or considerations along three stages of the COVID-19 crisis period: Prepare, Respond and Recover.

amfori endorses the UNDP’s C19 Rapid Self-Assessment tool and encourages its members to use and to disseminate it to their business partners in global supply chains.

You can download the original version in PDF format in multiple languages on the UNDP’s website.

For more information please go to: Human Rights Due Diligence and COVID-19: Rapid Self-Assessment for Business