Background

Businesses, governments and communities across Asia-Pacific are navigating overlapping pressures – geopolitical uncertainty, climate disruption, technological change, heightened societal tensions, economic volatility and increasingly fragmented regulatory landscapes – that are reshaping investment decisions, supply chains, labor markets and relationships between businesses and the societies in which they operate.

Resilience has become central to discussions about how these actors respond to that pressure, yet its meaning is neither settled nor neutral. Consultations undertaken for the 2026 Forum reflected these different perspectives. Business participants focused on the capacity to anticipate disruption, adapt operations and supply chains, and maintain human rights commitments under strain. Civil society participants emphasized whether workers, communities and human rights defenders retain rights, livelihoods, voice and access to remedy, cautioning that resilience should not mean continuity for business while others absorb greater insecurity. Governments highlighted the need to move beyond managing disruption towards strengthening the institutions, incentives and accountability mechanisms that shape business conduct.

Despite their difference, these perspectives converge on one point: resilience cannot mean simply withstanding or recovering from shocks.

By conventional measures, systems can look resilient while missing exactly what matters most. Supply chains may continue to function while pressures intensify for workers and smaller suppliers. Investments may proceed while unresolved community concerns deepen. Regulatory compliance may increase without delivering meaningful changes in people’s lives.

True resilience must be examined in terms of who bears the costs of disruption, whether those costs are anticipated early enough to prevent harm, and whether existing systems can address harm when it occurs. It requires systems that keep adapting, not simply returning to how they stood before disruption, but evolving to meet what comes next.

Across all groups, this translated into a shared focus on implementation: whether human rights due diligence enables earlier identification and prevention of harm, whether stakeholder engagement influences decisions, whether grievance mechanisms deliver effective remedy, and whether regulatory and accountability systems remain effective under pressure.

This session will explore how these elements reinforce one another, where tensions remain, and what must hold, adapt or change for businesses, governments and communities to navigate disruption without weakening rights.

Key Objectives

The session aims to:

• Surface different perspectives on resilience: Explore what resilience means for businesses, governments, workers and communities, including where priorities converge and where tensions remain.

• Connect resilience with implementation: Examine whether human rights due diligence, stakeholder engagement, remedy and accountability systems remain effective when operating environments come under pressure.

• Frame the question ahead: Identify what must hold, what must adapt and what must change to build resilience without weakening rights.

  
  

Guiding Questions

• What have recent disruptions revealed about where existing business and human rights systems are working, and where they are failing?

• When commercial pressures and human rights commitments come into tension, how are companies making decisions across their operations and supply chains?

• How can workers and communities influence resilience strategies before decisions are made, rather than bearing the consequences afterward?

• What would credible evidence of resilience look like across business performance, institutional effectiveness and outcomes for people?

Format

The session will use a curated fishbowl format to bring different perspectives into the conversation. The discussion will begin with three anchor participants representing business, government and rights holders, with an open seat allowing selected participants to join and contribute throughout the session.

The anchor participants will offer short reflections in response to the guiding questions, while the moderator will connect experiences across stakeholder groups, surface points of convergence and tension, and ensure that the conversation remains focused on the choices and trade-offs involved in building resilience while advancing rights.