Telenor Human Rights Expert Forum
To share learnings and insights from the Human Rights Expert Forum, a report summarizing the discussions is available here.
In early 2023, Telenor established a Human Rights Expert Forum to proactively address potential human rights challenges in a changing business environment and navigate the complex global landscape where respecting human rights can be difficult.
Telenor Expert Forum specifically focused on:
Lessons learned from Telenor's exit from Myanmar and potential future challenges.
The impact of Telenor's transition to a new operating model, including Business Areas, and potential challenges with moving from full ownership to minority ownership in Malaysia and Thailand.
Operating in an external environment where respecting human rights can be difficult.
The forum had six external members who participated in their individual capacity. The purpose of the forum was to provide insight and guidance on human rights challenges and dilemmas through a series of high-level conversations with internal Telenor stakeholders.
The conversations were shaped and informed by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the Global Network Initiative Principles and Implementation Guidelines, as well as relevant global and Norwegian legislation and policy documents (The Transparency Act 2021 and State Ownership Policy 2023).
The content of this report is informed by the Expert Forum conversations. Telenor shares the hope that the reflections provide insights that will contribute to ongoing discussions about business and human rights.
Telenor is grateful to the Expert Forum for their engagement and openness to discussing and sharing their views as experts in Human Rights on lessons learnt and difficult dilemmas drawn from Telenor’s practical experiences. We also appreciate the Expert Forum’s efforts to challenge us on our approach in difficult dilemma situations as discussed in our meetings.
