Germany – SDG

Objectives of the National Action Plan [page 4]

The Federal Government attaches great importance to worldwide protection and promotion of human rights. The European Commission, in its Communication of 2011 entitled “A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility”, called on all EU Member States to develop their own national action plans for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. The Federal Government, in the coalition agreement of 2013, committed itself to implementing the UN Guiding Principles in Germany. Through the present National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights (NAP), it wishes to contribute to improving the human rights situation worldwide and to giving globalisation a social dimension in accordance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

1. The State Duty to Protect

1.1 Basic rules of economic policy

Development Policy [page 18]

German development policy is value-based and is guided by the principle of human rights, because every individual worldwide must have fair development opportunities. Respecting, protecting and guaranteeing human rights are binding requirements and form a key component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which, in 2015, the international community resolved to implement. With its globally and universally applicable Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2030 Agenda serves as a compass and reference framework and has been in force since 1 January 2016. The 2030 Agenda underlines the aspiration of the Federal Government to combine economic development with sustainability, with the basic principles of social and green market economics and with decent working conditions. Through its development policy, Germany works proactively at all levels – globally, in partnership with other countries and nationally – to ensure that human rights are upheld by fostering the creation of requisite legal and institutional conditions, pertinent state regulation, and the monitoring of corporate activity. To this end, assistance is given to governments of developing countries as well as to international and multilateral organisations, for example, in aligning their economic and social policies more closely with human rights and sustainability standards.