Human Rights in Export Credit Agencies: Consultancy of the Austrian Export Credit Agency(OeKB)

In November 2012 the Austrian Export Credit Agency (OeKB) gained the third place of the Austrian Sustainability Reporting Award (ASRA). The jury based its decision on OeKB’s particular focus on human rights in its 2011 Sustainability Report. Eveline Balogh, the head of the department for organisation, construction, environment and safety underlined that this success was a result of the newsworthy activities of OeKB’s departments to which the cooperation with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) has substantially contributed.

Since September 2010 LBI-GMR has been actively supporting the OeKB in the implementation of a human rights due diligence process. It provided human rights relevant inputs during the review of the OECD Common Approaches (the OECD regulations on environmental and social impact assessments that have to be applied by official export credit agencies) which have considerably strengthened social criteria. Together with the OeKB LBI-GMR has developed a strategy on how to better integrate crucial human rights aspects in future export credit supported projects. To this end it has elaborated materials and conducted internal and external trainings.