[09 December 2025]

The OECD National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct organised a Thematic Meeting on Responsible Business Conduct in Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (CAHRAs) in the Dutch Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken offices in The Hague. The NCP Thematic Meetings bring together businesses, NGOs, and other organisations interested in corporate social responsibility and the OECD Guidelines. The goal is to share knowledge, exchange experiences, and collaborate on implementing the OECD Guidelines in practice.

This year’s meeting focused on how companies can address risks associated with business activities in CAHRAs. As a specialist in this space, TrustWorks CEO and founder, Josie Lianna Kaye, was invited to share insights on conflict-specific best practices through the lens of international, humanitarian law, heightened human rights due diligence and conflict-sensitivity. Based on TrustWorks’ 12 years of experience in this domain, she drew attention to five key challenges that companies face when trying to operationalise their approach to responsible business in CAHRAs, as well as suitable strategies for overcoming these challenges. Her intervention was followed by a panel discussion with esteemed colleagues Ben Katz, OECD Centre for Responsible Business Conduct, Siniša Milatović, UNDP and Obbe Siderius, former Heineken Global Director Business Conduct.

One key message from the event is that conflict-specific due diligence requires going beyond traditional human rights due diligence processes to understand the relationship between companies’ business activities and the factors and the actors driving conflict. Furthermore, the deployment of such approaches in a consistent manner enables companies to effectively manage the legal, financial, reputational and operational risks they face in CAHRAs, while also enabling them to become more resilient, and therefore to be able to grow and even flourish in the more challenging of contexts.

Our brief on hHRDD – the second in our Responsible Business in Conflict series – covers the most frequently asked questions by companies and investors regarding how to conduct hHRDD. Check out the brief to find out what they are.

TrustWorks was grateful to the OECD NCP in the Netherlands for the kind invitation to contribute and participate.