'Five Years of Sector Dialogues: A civil society review'

The sector dialogue format was created on the basis of the [German] National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights (NAP) and is a particular form of multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI)...

The particular format of the sector dialogues has had some positive results, but on balance the overall result for civil society is rather patchy. The coordination of a shared understanding of risk among the sectors concerned and the building of trust between the various groups of actors have brought about a shared commitment in the case of some of the challenges identified. However... it has not been possible (so far) to achieve the desired leverage effect through collective measures by the relevant sector, especially where those (potentially) affected in the supply chain are concerned...

...In light of these considerations, legislators and enforcement authorities should critically question the potentially favourable acknowledgement of companies reporting on their participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives. Simply being a member of these initiatives does not necessarily imply active participation and implementation of impact-orientated pilot projects and collaborative cooperation to increase the influence capacity of companies in the supply chain...

Last but not least, attempts by companies to depict their activities in the sector dialogues as stakeholder engagement must be viewed in a critical light against the background of the CSDDD and the LkSG. The sector dialogues, as well as several civil society publications, clearly show that participation of companies in multi-stakeholder formats can never replace the inclusion of rights holders and their representatives along the supply chain...