On November 24, the virtual Workshop "Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights" took place, which had the participation of 40 professionals, from more than 10 member companies, from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.

The meeting, which was exclusively for ARPEL members and coordinated through the Social Responsibility Committee, had the participation of José Abad-Puelles as a special guest, Director of Policies of the Secretariat for the Voluntary Principles of Security and Human Rights, who presented the framework on the Voluntary Principles, as well as implementation experiences.

The workshop was also made up of Fabio Lugo, Tecpetrol's Corporate Manager of Personal and Property Security; Iván Alcázar, Head of Personal and Patrimonial Security of Tecpetrol Ecuador, and Darwin Vega, Coordinator of Community Relations of the same ARPEL member company, who shared their experience in the implementation of security policies with participation in the public force, in particularly in Bermejo, Ecuador, in which they took the Voluntary Principles as a guide for the elaboration of the policy.

Sandra Martínez from Pluspetrol, President of the ARPEL Social Responsibility Committee, highlighted that “this is an issue that emerged a few months ago within the Committee as a need for all companies in the hydrocarbon sector in Latin America, precisely because of something that we are seeing today, the issue of the close interrelation between interest groups, communities, the population and the activities we have as hydrocarbon companies in highly sensitive areas”.

During the workshop an active group discussion took place in which good practices were exchanged regarding Human Rights and the management of relations with communities, a fundamental aspect for the industry.

As fundamental recommendations it was mentioned: the involvement of the communities and indigenous peoples; risk identification and analysis with special emphasis on vulnerable groups and with a good understanding of local contexts; the importance of the interrelation between the national security policy and the company's security policy; how to incorporate into business policy the national legal framework and the international human rights framework, in particular, the guiding principles of the United Nations (Protect, Respect and Remedy), as well as the importance of properly distinguishing the roles between the company and the national security forces.