A/HRC/29/28 economic and social policy involving Member States and other stakeholders in the respective regions (see A/HRC/21/21 and Corr.1, para. 41). 74. A welcome contribution has been the support provided by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in the organization of the above-mentioned African Regional Forum. During the Forum, ECA stated that the Guiding Principles provided a critical reference for a human rights-based approach to development, and that the pursuit of human rights was a social and economic necessity for inclusive and sustainable development and cohesive societies (see A/HRC/29/28/Add.2, para. 13). Other United Nations regional commissions could usefully play similar roles. 75. With regard to the integration of the Guiding Principles in regional developmentrelated initiatives, the aforementioned contribution of ECA to the African Mining Vision through the African Minerals Development Centre provides a good example. The efforts to mainstream human rights and the Guiding Principles in the extractive sector through the design of national mineral policies are encouraging. Creating links with other efforts aimed at promoting development of national action plans on business and human rights could build further synergies and coherence. 3. Engaging small and medium-sized enterprises 76. While small and medium-sized enterprises make up the vast majority of the world’s companies, they have been given considerably less attention in the global business and human rights debate, in spite of the fact that such enterprises could affect human rights in the same way as transnational corporations do and are less often subject to the same level of scrutiny. 77. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) could play an important role in supporting outreach to small and medium-sized enterprises. A starting point would be to embed the Guiding Principles across its work, especially in the context of its corporate social responsibility programme (but not only).63 The work of UNCTAD on global value chains provides yet another entry point. Existing tools and research could provide useful resources for aligning such support and engagement with the Guiding Principles.64 78. Another highly complex challenge, also relevant in the discussion on linking the development and business and human rights agenda, is to promote protection and respect for human rights in the informal sector. This was identified as a key issue in discussions at the African Regional Forum, one that needs to be discussed further among all stakeholders. V. United Nations partnerships with the private sector 79. Some final observations relate to the important role of United Nations platforms for partnerships with private sector that already support the dissemination of the Guiding Principles. 80. The contributions of the Global Compact and the UNEP Finance Initiative are especially critical for addressing the strategic challenges set out below. 20 63 www.unido.org/csr.html. 64 In particular the European Commission’s guidance for SMEs on the Guiding Principles, “My business and human rights”, which provides an introduction to the field in simple language. See also the IHRB State of Play report (see footnote 41).