 I think there's a lot of learning that has happened over the last two days. The civil society session was for me the key session for me in just interacting in terms of the kind of problems that are arising to understand the landscape. That was one of the biggest takeaways, the value of transparency. Investing in creating open communication and transparency allows the conversation to happen at a much more informed level and allows us to reach solutions rather than just blame each other for problems. I think this is the time to take that pause, to look at issues from a perspective of human rights, bring the human rights discourse into businesses which has been forgotten for a while and activate the human side of business. The working group believed that we need to go outside Geneva and work with all these stakeholders to promote the implementation of UN guiding principles. We had participants not only from South Asia but also other countries and we really had a very good appetite for all these stakeholders to work together to make a positive change. These voices from the inaugural UN South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights captured the challenges and solutions linked to the burgeoning economies of South Asia. Economies that are growing rapidly but often at the cost of compromised labour standards, disregard of human rights, gender inequalities, unfair land acquisition and attacks on human rights defenders. The UNDP's B plus HR Asia unit and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights co-organized this inaugural forum held in New Delhi, India on 14th and 15th of March 2019. The forum brought together over 200 participants from 16 countries representing government, civil society, academia, business, trade unions and the UN family. It created a platform to facilitate collaboration among varied stakeholders including the private sector. Their aim to mitigate adverse impacts of business activities on human rights and to contribute to achieving sustainable development goals in South Asia. The group assessed key challenges, opportunities and took stock of progress made in South Asia in implementing the UN guiding principles for business and human rights. The idea is to work together and find solutions working together. So the approach is solution oriented approach. The group also encouraged peer learning among states and businesses in South Asia and facilitated regional exchange of good practices. Collaboration for all parties is very important. The stakeholders cannot work in isolation. Over 11 sessions, the participants deliberated on how to implement the three pillars of the UN guiding principles, protect, respect and remedy. The state duty to protect rights, corporate responsibility to respect rights and the need for remedy to address gaps. What I try to impress upon all the stakeholders is what I call ABC. We need to raise awareness, we need to build capacity and then we need to collaborate and if we do these ABC well then we can promote the implementation of UN guiding principles much faster and much better throughout the globe. The organizational commitment was at the highest level. From the UNDP, its administrator Achim Steiner emphasized the importance of human rights as a bedrock of sustainable development goals. He highlighted that today, business's social license to operate is contingent upon respect of human rights. That notion of a license to operate is much more than just an abstract sentiment amongst consumers or citizens. Professor Suryadeva, who chairs the UN working group on business and human rights, reaffirmed the group's commitment to engage with all stakeholders to implement the guiding principles and more importantly, take the discussions beyond the chambers of Geneva, where the UN annual forum meets each year. Injiti Srinivas, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs India, enthralled the audience narrating the evolution of business and human rights discourse in India. From the Gandhian ideal of trusteeship to more philanthropic approach of businesses, from corporate social responsibility to responsible business conduct, from national voluntary guidelines to policy commitment to develop the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights by 2020, and the government's engagement with the treaty process. What was discretionary, voluntary, not voluntary to legally bind them? You're moving in a particular direction. The writing is on the wall and therefore, it is better that we start moving in that direction and reorienting our business practices. Governments, including India, Thailand, Nepal, Malaysia and Maldives, shared the challenges and opportunities in drafting national policy frameworks. Businesses demonstrated how companies could turn challenges into opportunities by conducting human rights due diligence throughout their business operations and discussed the role of multi-stakeholder coalitions to promote business respect for human rights. The group conferred the complexities of value chains in today's world and its implications on human rights due diligence processes and practices. The role of stakeholders, particularly states and the investors in contributing to the scaling up of effective human rights due diligence, was also discussed. We also need to innovate and find out new ways of addressing and resolving the chronic human rights challenges that we have within our own organizations, operations, especially supply chain. So I think it's incredible and I call out all the businesses to participate in a much more wholehearted manner and take care of the opportunity that we have. Deliberations on the third pillar, access to remedy varied from the role of courts and national human rights institutions in facilitating access to remedy to understanding the guiding principles and improving labor standards beyond the factory walls and the impacts of development projects on communities. The national human rights institutions from the region shared their tools and strategies to support the private sector so that companies can discharge their responsibility to respect human rights in line with the guiding principles and learn from each other's strengths. The session on women, business and human rights debated the business case for women's rights and the impact of intersectionality on substantive equality and raised pertinent questions on gender considerations with respect to human rights. The forum provided an opportunity for regional civil society organizations to come together and exchange good practices and discuss their strategies and tools to engage with governments and the private sector to address business related human rights impacts. Each session at the forum was power packed and allowed the participants to engage in dialogue on issues that can significantly impact human rights of workers and human rights defenders. Growth and progress are important but critically so are rights. We moved the needle I think strongly on awareness. We reached out to a lot of people so we need each and every of these 200 people to become ambassadors for business and human rights. A real discussion about how the UN can help introduce legally binding standards for the corporations so that their activities do not lead to violation of human rights and do not pollute environment anymore. The most important thing for me was of course that there were so many companies which were local companies in this session. Usually these conversations have a lot of multinational but seeing local companies coming and sharing their experiences were extremely important and I hope this is the first of many such conversations. I'm confident that these two-day deliberations would create the environment for partnership between these countries to promote the cause of business and human rights. It is through efforts such as these that the B plus HR Asia leverages trusted relationships throughout the region and convenes governments, private sector actors, civil society and national human rights institutions to achieve greater coherence for collective action to promote responsible business practices in Asia. We're actually very fortunate to have participants from different sides of the table and I think the coming together of these different stakeholders with diverse interests and diverse and different priorities I think that's been the key success and the momentum that's been created through the forum I hope those synergies that are being created I hope people continue to build on that.