…Coys  urged to curb conflicts with better communication

By Omodele Adigun and Chinyere Anyanwu

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Business resumed on negative note Monday on the Lagos floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as bearish sentiments that pervaded the market pushed all performance indicators to the red zone.
Both the All Share Index and  the market capitalisation cascaded further south, plunging to 27,598.54 points and N9.479 trillion respectively. They had opened for the day at 27,634.42 points and N9.491trillion,
As regards the volume of business, investors traded 142.34 million shares worth N1.429 trillion in 3,695 deals. Out of this, the Financial Services topped the activity chart with 84.11 million shares worth N302 million.
Twenty four stock depreciated in price  as against the 16 that made the gainers’ table.
Meanwhile, public and private organisations have been urged to put mechanisms in place to address human rights issues in-house before they get out of hand.
This was the submission of the keynote speaker at the recently concluded CSR Practitioners’ Training programme held both in Lagos and Abuja.
Speaking during the event on the theme, “Corporate Social Responsibility in Action: Human Rights and Business”, Mr. Greg Gardner, President/CEO of Arche Advisors, USA, stated that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has changed over the years and has gone beyond philanthropy.
Urging corporate organisations and governments to engage stakeholders in talks that lead to timely resolution of issues relating to business activities and peaceful co-existence, Gardner said it was most appropriate to “achieve commercial success in ways that honour ethical values and respect people, communities and the natural environment.”
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of De Bernards Consulting and Executive Director, International Network for Corporate Social Responsibility, Mr. Eustace Onuegbu, stated that the programme, organised in partnership with Arche Advisors, was a team effort aimed at bringing credibility to CSR practice in the country and adding local content to it.
Onuegbu, whose presentation was entitled, “Beyond CSR: Human Rights Due Diligence – A Responsibility and Business Investment”, described CSR as not only the return of profit to the  community but a shared value for all stakeholders.
Referring to the United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework, Onuegbu said, “the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in essence means to act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others.”
He further noted that, “human rights due diligence is a low cost business investment that creates shared value for all stakeholders while improving bottom line.Introducing HRDD (Human Rights Due Diligence) does not mean that philanthropy should stop; rather that it is strengthened by providing for the respect of people’s rights in the conduct of business.”
The training programme dwelt on the development and implementation of effective CSR strategies, CSR reporting and communication, among others.