About the Project

Global supply chains hold great promise for economic and social development but also pose significant human rights risks, including child labour, forced labour, low wages, sexual harassment, and inadequate health and safety measures. Companies often find it challenging to effectively address these issues.

To tackle these risks, it is crucial to foster meaningful dialogue and collaboration among supply chain actors. Such engagement not only provides direct benefits but also drives transformative change by addressing rightsholders’ needs and shifting power dynamics within supply chains.

However, meaningful engagement can be hindered by geographic distance, differing backgrounds, and varying levels of knowledge about human rights due diligence (HREDD). Producers might fear losing business by discussing risks, while companies may doubt the value of such dialogue. Recent legislation underscores the need for stakeholder engagement, but practical examples and methodologies are scarce.

In response, Fairtrade NAPP, in collaboration with Fairtrade International and HREDD Centre of Excellence Consortium funded by ISEAL (ISEAL Innovations Fund),  launched a 02 year long project starting in the starting of 2024. The goal is to enhance rightsholder engagement by developing practical methods, fostering discussions among ISEAL members, and testing these approaches in real-world scenarios.

Our Interventions

  1. Mapping Best Practices: Benchmarking existing engagement methods to identify effective approaches.
  2. 2.Participatory Planning:  Selecting and assessing producer organizations and brands/retailers, and developing a detailed project plan.
  3. Capacity Building for Rightsholders: Training farmers and workers, including vulnerable groups, on due diligence and identifying issues, with information shared from prior risk assessments if available.
  4. Capacity Building for Companies:Preparing companies to engage meaningfully by discussing rightsholder concerns and solutions.
  5. Developing Facilitation Methods: Creating a prototype for dialogue facilitation based on best practices and previous insights.
  6. Facilitating Dialogue Events: Organizing virtual or physical events to foster direct engagement and co-creation between rightsholders and companies.
  7. Assessing and Sharing Lessons Learned: Conducting evaluations, refining methods, and sharing findings with ISEAL members and the public.
  8. Reporting and Coordination:Ongoing monitoring and coordination throughout the project.

End Goal

The project will test dialogue approaches with rightsholders in Asia, focusing on cotton production in India and sugar production in the Philippines and Fiji. Issues include child labour in India, gender-based violence in the Philippines, and living wages in Fiji. The insights gained will help refine practices for meaningful engagement and strengthen mitigation and remediation pathways, ultimately improving corporate HREDD efforts and rightsholder empowerment.