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PUBLICATION | Dhawura Ngilan Business & Investor Initiative – Business Guide Exposure Draft
Chris Caskey | September 15, 2023
At the 2023 Australian Dialogue on Business and Human Rights, the Dhawura Ngilan Business & Investor Initiative launched an exposure draft of the Dhawura Ngilan – Business Guide.
Estelle Parker, Executive Manager, Responsible Investment Association Australasia; Mel Sutton, Director, KPMG Banarra, Human Rights and Social Impact Services; Jamie Lowe, CEO, National Native Title Council; and Cath Brokenborough, Executive Lead, First Nations and Indigenous Engagement, Lendlease, present on the panel ‘Elevating First Nations’ Voices using a Rights Respecting Approach: from interconnected approaches to the Voice to cultural heritage protection’ at the 2023 Australian Dialogue on Business and Human Rights.
About the Dhawura Ngilan Business and Investor Initiative
In 2020, the Dhawura Ngilan publication established a Vision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage in Australia and Best Practice Standards in Indigenous cultural heritage management and legislation. This vision provided an Australia-specific roadmap for the protection of cultural heritage within the legislative agenda, embedded within the right to self-determination of First Australians. However, the need for deeper and more meaningful understanding, protection, and respect for Indigenous rights within the private sector is clear.
The Dhawura Ngilan Business and Investor Initiative, led by the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance with support from the Responsible Investment Association Australasia and the UN Global Compact Network Australia seeks to enable businesses and investors to bring the Dhawura Ngilan vision to life in a meaningful way within the private sector. The Initiative is working to accomplish this through comprehensive rightsholder and stakeholder consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and leading businesses throughout Australia, and designing a sustainable engagement process which incorporates Indigenous voices into corporate decision making for the long term.
Business Guide – Exposure Draft
At the 2023 Australian Dialogue on Business and Human Rights, the Dhawura Ngilan Business and Investor Initiative partners launched an exposure draft of the business implementation guide. The purpose of this launch is for UNGCNA participants to obtain visibility of the work of the Initiative and to consider how they may wish to integrate the expectations set out in the framework within their own business.
- Download the Business Guide – Exposure Draft here: Dhawura Ngilan (Remembering Country): A Vision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage: A Guide for Businesses [Exposure Draft August 2023].
Next steps: Get involved
If you are a UNGCNA participant and would like to get involved with the Dhawura Ngilan Business & Investor Initiative, please contact our Manager, Human Rights. For more information on the current work of the Initiative, visit the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance website.
article by
Chris Caskey
Chris is a human rights professional with experience in human rights law, business and human rights, modern slavery, and regulatory risk advisory. At the UNGCNA, Chris co-leads our Human Rights workstream, manages the delivery of our Modern Slavery Impact Initiative and leads the UNGCNA engagement with the Dhawura Ngilan Business & Investor Initiative.
