Business Partnerships as a Force for Good | Learning Series | Newsletter 3 - September 2021

Quarterly Newsletter | September 2021

Business Partnerships for Global Goals

COVID-19 Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Series

Welcome to the September 2021 edition of the Business Partnerships for Global Goals (BP4GG) programme newsletter Through the BP4GG programme’s Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility (VSCF), the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) partners with UK and international businesses with operations in Africa and Asia to provide relief and support to vulnerable workers at farms and factories during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve this, we work in partnership with multinationals, not-for-profit organisations, and a range of supply chain actors. The VSCF practically demonstrates how businesses working in partnership with government aid agencies and the not-for-profit sector can be a force for good at this highly challenging time.

The VSCF portfolio of eight projects trials shared value initiatives that contribute to ‘building back better’ from the pandemic by strengthening supply chain resilience and increasing social and environmental sustainability.

This newsletter aims to showcase this approach by providing latest updates and learnings from the VSCF project portfolio, celebrating successes, showcasing results, sharing the impact and signposting to further learning opportunities.

Our Partners

• Arco • Awaj Foundation • CARE International • Co-op • Coventry University • Dimensions • Ethical Trading Initiative • Fairtrade Africa • Fairtrade Foundation • Flamingo Horticulture • Flower Hub • FlowerWatch • FNET • Girl Determined • GoodWeave International • Impactt • IPL • Marks & Spencer • MM Flowers • Mondelez International • Minor Weir and Willis • Monsoon Accessorize • Morrisons • New Look • Partner Africa • Practical Solutions International • Primark • Proctor & Gamble • Sainsbury’s • Tesco • Union Roasted • VF Corporation • Waitrose • Women Working Worldwide • Xpol

Farm worker harvesting rice at bia west, Ghana Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

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About the programme…

Business Partnerships for Global Goals (BP4GG) is a UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) programme which invests in partnerships with businesses and not-for-profit organisations to test and scale shared value business initiatives that contribute to the Global Goals.

The BP4GG programme was initiated shortly before the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was declared in March 2020.

Given the profound global disruption to trade and economic activity, in April 2020 BP4GG pivoted toward responding to the pandemic, resulting in the establishment of a rapid response facility, the ‘COVID-19 Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility’ (VSCF).

The VSCF partners with 20 UK and international retailers and brands, and nine not-for-profit organisations, supporting over 296 suppliers across Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. It is providing economic, social, and health benefits to approximately one million women and men directly and indirectly.

BP4GG is managed by Mott MacDonald.

Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) are consortium partners.

How is BP4GG supporting vulnerable women and men in the supply chains during the pandemic?

Creating value for the most vulnerable people through partnering with responsible businesses

• Supplying the most vulnerable

workers and their families with relief packages including food, masks, soap, hand sanitiser and paracetamol.

• Providing farms and garments factories with technical assistance for re-purposing toward COVID-19-safe processes to stay in production during the pandemic.

• Financial inclusion for factory workers to support them during the pandemic and beyond.

• Training and assistance for flower farm and smallholders to enable them to continue to grow and harvest their crops during lockdown while building resilience.

• Supporting cocoa farmers and flower growers to help them cultivate other crops and diversify their incomes through climate-smart farming.

• Providing COVID-19 safety information to garment workers.

Focusing on gender, social inclusion, human rights, operational safety, and climate change

• Strengthening healthcare systems to

Garment factory worker wearing a mask as part of covid-19 awareness Photo Credit: Ethical Trading Initiative

safeguard women against genderbased violence in the workplace and wider community.

• Raising awareness of gender inequality and the impact of COVID-19 on women including gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the workplace and wider community.

• Testing innovative and climate smart freight options for flowers from Africa to UK and Europe.

• Increasing transparency of ‘hidden’ supply chains to provide enhanced protection against child labour, modern slavery and poor working conditions.

Top BP4GG achievements as of September 2021

1.

Eight projects in seven countries across Africa and Asia completed substantially exceeding the programme logframe targets, despite the challenging pandemic context.

5.

3.

2.

Delivering benefit to a large number of women and men impacted by COVID-19. 526,440 farm and factory workers (58% of whom are women) directly received benefits such as: cash transfers, health services, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), COVID-19 prevention messaging, training and awareness, worker rights and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) awareness, income diversification support such as through kitchen gardens and seed provision, and climate resilience training.

1 Results using the Poverty Probability Index [PPI] developed by Innovations for Poverty Action.

Improving lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable people.

276,300 people (60% of whom are women) benefited and report improvements to their livelihoods.

4.

Improvements in knowledge, practices and working conditions.

352,216 people (59% of whom are women) benefited from the VSCF and report increased knowledge, improved practices or changed behaviours.

Reaching the most vulnerable women and men. 72% of B4GG beneficiaries are living on below $5.5 a day [2011 PPI]. PPI statistics show that overall, across the seven BP4GG countries, 63% of people are living below $5.5 a day. BP4GG has been successful in reaching those most in need, well beyond the countries’ poverty average.

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6.

Toward sustainable change. During this quarter, the signs of sustainability have matured. VSCF partners are spearheading new and next generation interventions that will ensure changes brought about through the VSCF are expanded to benefit more people and sustained into the future, continuing to improve lives of the most vulnerable women and men. Two independently formed sea freight groups are continuing to ship flowers to the UK and Europe; a UK Covenant for the flowers sector has been developed

by FairTrade Flowers and MM Flowers; ETI and Partner Africa are preparing a campaign on working conditions in East Africa; Mondelez is considering how to include lessons from VSCF into the next ten years of funding for their Cocoa Life programme.

7.

Keeping our people safe. COVID-19 cases continued to rise in Kenya and Bangladesh with renewed lockdowns and restrictions. Our partners sustained activities through COVID-safe practices including virtual and online platforms, keeping our teams and beneficiaries on the ground safe.

9.

8.

Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning series.

We co-hosted a high-profile event, Building Back Better and Greener from the Pandemic, with Business Fights Poverty on 26 May 2021. The event was attended by over 760 participants and focussed on four key themes aligned with policy priorities at the G7 Summit, which the UK hosted on 11-13 June. We have also published three Learning Briefs this quarter and held seven Wrap Up Workshops with all VSCF projects to capture learning from them.

Listening to UK Businesses.

We organised a Private Business Roundtable with FCDO on 29 July 2021 which featured a keynote address from Ian Felton, Head of the FCDO’s Responsible Business and Business Engagement team (RBUBE). 18 UK business partners shared perspectives gained through the VSCF about the potential for future partnerships in achieving sustainable development outcomes.

10.

Private sector contributions exceed their commitments.

By the end of July, matched funding from partners outstripped funding from FCDO, reaching 126% more than partners committed to at the time of contracting.

11.

Good governance combined with adaptive management. In several Wrap Up workshops, our partners, including UK brand partners, and local suppliers described how robust results monitoring combined with operational flexibility enabled VSCF partners to respond quickly and achieve impressive results in a very short period of time.

Helen King, Head of Department, Economic Cooperation and Growth, FCDO joined the Learning Event: Partnerships for building back better and greener from the pandemic (26 May 2021)

Ian Felton, Head of Responsible Business and Business Engagement team (RBUBE), FCDO joined the Business Roundtable: Listening to the UK businesses (29 July 2021)

Helen King, Head of Economic Cooperation and Growth Department, FCDO, was the keynote speaker at the learning event organised by BP4GG on 26 May 2021.

Participants discussed ‘Partnerships for building back better and greener from the pandemic’ as part of our Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Series.

Ian Felton, Head of Responsible Business and Business Engagement team (RBUBE), FCDO, was the keynote speaker at the event. The event was attended by 35 participants including 18 UK business partner representatives. A number of FCDO colleagues participated.

Helen commended the BP4GG programme and its partners on the success of the portfolio of projects being implemented, noting the one million people expected to benefit through strengthened and more resilient supply chains.

She emphasised that such partnerships, between government and a wide range of other stakeholders, including business and civil society, will be critical to meeting the biggest global challenges of our time: catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss, and helping the world to overcome COVID-19.

She outlined broader priorities for the UK government including enabling inclusive growth and mutual prosperity by championing the free flow of trade, creating high quality green jobs coupled with renewable energy to drive a transition to a low-carbon economy, the participation of workers in this transition, and the focus on rights and gender equality.

COVID-19 has exacerbated existing financing challenges to meeting these goals. This increasing gap makes private sector investment and the participation of multinational corporations in creating sustainable livelihoods for the world’s poorest even more pressing. She welcomed the coming-together of business and government for the event and their engagement in the responsible and inclusive business agenda.

Ian appreciated the BP4GG work to date in establishing strong partnerships in the face of challenging COVID-19 times to deliver results for the most vulnerable women and men. He noted that FCDO was looking for lessons on how the FCDO can engage with business in building resilient supply chains and achieving the sustainable development goals, especially drawing on lessons learned from the BP4GG partnership projects. He also highlighted the timeliness of the Roundtable, as the FCDO Responsible Business and Business Engagement team is currently developing future engagement plans. A consultation opened in July to inform the FCDO’s new International Development Strategy to 2030.

The private sector has a critical role to play in aligning their business models to support the SDGs, while government creates the enabling environment for this.

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Our Agriculture Portfolio is helping to keep farms, workers and smallholders COVID-safe and resilient in Africa

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Agriculture supply chains in Africa have been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, resulting in increased joblessness, poverty, and vulnerability for farm workers and smallholders across the continent, especially women. Global lockdown measures have sent the horticulture and flower industries into crisis as exports continue to be curtailed and internal African trade disrupted.

Almost 35% of flowers produced in Kenya are exported to UK and Europe and more than 500,000 workers in Kenya rely on this industry. In East Africa, demand for flowers fell to 20% of normal levels in April 2020, air freight capacity from Kenya to Europe dropped by 60%, and 50,000 flower workers (50% women) were laid off due to COVID-19 impact. Further disruption has continued with the resurgence of COVID-19 globally.

Fairtrade estimated that over 90% of farm workers were affected by the crisis through issues including food insecurity, lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), challenges to safety and wellbeing, increased genderbased violence, and reduced pay. In Ghana, lockdowns and cocoa price collapse impacted farmers’ ability to access transportation, storage, finance, trainings, and agricultural inputs needed for the 2020-21 harvest, with pressures higher on women and elderly cocoa farmers.

To respond to this situation, the VSCF partnership projects in agriculture targeted a range of farmlevel emergency support interventions, research and learning on pandemic resilience, income diversification, and supply chain adaptation work.

Crops grown on raised conical gardens at galaxy farm, Kenya Photo credit: Eva Okallo VP Group

Testing alternative mechanisms for exporting flowers from Kenya for greener and more responsible trade.

Flamingo Horticulture Limited, together with service companies Practical Solutions International and FlowerWatch, freight forwarders Kuehne & Nagel, and shipping companies CMA and Maersk, have piloted sea freighting of flowers from Kenya to the UK and Europe as a lower-carbon, cost-effective alternative to air freight. The project engaged supply chain partners to introduce innovations and new processes, triggered by the impact of COVID-19 on reduced air freight availability and escalating prices. Additional buyers IPL, Xpol and Flower Hub joined the project after its inception. To build on the project’s momentum, additional funds were allocated to run grower workshops, share results, and encourage more flower farms to trial sea freight through creating market linkages in the sector in Kenya.

17,984 workers in Kenya have maintained jobs as their farms used sea freight to export flowers to UK and Europe in times where airfreight options were limited or much more expensive and the sector was marked by losses and downsizing. Innovative solutions to reduce air freight capacity leading to 13 shipments with more than 90% saving in carbon emission. Sea freight has potential to save costs of $35.5m to $89.5m over five years for conservative and optimistic scenarios respectively.

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Agriculture Portfolio Improving business continuity and growth for flower sector in Kenya.

Fairtrade Foundation and MM Flowers joined forces together with UK retailers Co-op, M&S, and Tesco to provide immediate relief from COVID-19 disruption for Kenyan flower workers through sustainable workplace and fairer trade improvements. This project has reached workers and farmers with direct support through the kitchen garden work stream and indirectly with health information, ensuring business continuity for farms, and security of supply for buyers and consumers.

Health packages reached

6,104

flower workers in Kenya, while

2,973

flower workers have benefitted from kitchen or shared worker gardens.

Improving the horticulture, flower and coffee industry across four countries in Africa.

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) brought together a coalition of UK food retailers including Co-op, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose, to provide technical assistance to 11 farm sites across four countries in East and Southern Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Site-level support focussed on rebuilding business and making the working environment COVID-19 safe. Training content and lessons are being shared at regional and international levels online, and emerging good practice fed into how the ETI Base Code (responsible practice guidelines) is implemented, with examples disseminated for businesses’ adoption.

98,000

people in Nakuru County and surrounding areas were reached through a COVID-19 radio campaign.

Recovery, resilience and climate smart farming for cocoa farmers in Ghana.

Fairtrade Foundation worked with Mondelēz International in Ghana to ensure Cadbury-supplying cocoa farmers and their families remained resilient to the pandemic through accelerating income diversification and climate-smart farming. This project partnered with Mondelēz’s Cocoa Life sustainability programme in Ghana, and specifically built on the ‘Climate Change and Organisational Strengthening Programme’. It provided nine farmer unions with grants to maintain their productive base and diversify their income through start-up capital for new business models.

7,030

farmers in Ghana received climate change awareness and adaptation training;

6,157

union members have been directly reached through the grant activities through either receiving capacity building, inputs or being employed by the union;

26,000

over

union members were reached through a COVID-19 awareness campaign.

A cocoa pod Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

11,643

workers have been trained in risk awareness, provided with inputs (seeds fertiliser), or been reached with awareness on COVID-19.

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Our Garments Portfolio is safeguarding workers, identifying and addressing gender inequalities, and increasing supply chain transparency in Bangladesh and Myanmar

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The COVID-19 pandemic has hugely impacted the ready-made garments (RMG) sector, which supports over four million workers employed in over 4,000 factories in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Readymade garments comprise 80% of Bangladesh’s exports. As lockdowns in the Global North led to plummeting demand in March and April 2020, orders were cancelled, jobs lost, and low-income workers made increasingly vulnerable – especially women, who comprise between 60% to 90% of the garment workforce in these countries.

The resurgence of COVID-19 in India and Bangladesh in recent months has again put further pressure on the RMG sector. CARE’s rapid gender assessment conducted in 2020 for their VSCF project design in Bangladesh showed 33% of women reporting physical abuse, 100% indicating increased mental pressure, and reduction of ante- and post-natal care services by up to 87%.

From mid-2020 there has been a gradual increase in orders and a return to work, which has posed further health risks on the factory floor – requiring improved Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) measures for safeguarding workers. In Bangladesh, ILO estimates 85% of the labour force is informal, and DFID’s 2019 ‘Study on Modern Slavery in Bangladesh’ found frequent exploitation in the informal sector, which has increased under the stresses of the pandemic. Due to a surge in COVID-19 cases linked to new waves and variants, lockdowns were initiated again in Bangladesh between April and August 2021 and vaccine shortages resulted in a halt in the vaccine registration process for a period of two months while cases continued to rise. In Myanmar, many garment workers have just one month of savings, in the form of cash and jewellery, and in the absence of a fully functioning national social security system workers do not get fully compensated for loss of earnings due to termination of employment or reduced working hours. The UN Call to Action in the RMG sector urges stakeholders, including the private sector and development partners, to work together to develop concrete and specific measures to help protect garment workers’ income, and build back a more resilient garments industry.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the VSCF garments sector projects supported a range of factory- and community-level operational safety and women’s health interventions. Two of the projects addressed the vulnerability of informal workers in ‘hidden supply chains’, piloting direct cash transfers to vulnerable workers or emergency food relief to target immediate resilience and financial inclusion.

Bringing agency and resilience to informal workers in garments factories in Bangladesh GoodWeave International worked with Bangladeshi not-for-profit Awaj Foundation, and international retailers Monsoon Accessorize and VF Corporation, to support workers’ livelihoods and address the hidden nature of informal work through modern day slavery identification, referral, and remediation. The project mapped garment supply chains – leveraging support from partner brands and four local suppliers – and seeking to identify cases of child, forced, and bonded labour. COVID-19 prevention and legal rights information was shared, and emergency relief packages were provided to informal workers.

Identified individuals were provided remediation/referral services and best practices have been shared with other retail brands for wider uptake and adoption.

27,449

garment workers and family members provided with information on COVID-19 safety measures

11,548

beneficiaries receiving emergency food relief and 560 informal workers receiving information on workplace rights. 71% of food packets were provided to informal workers and 80% to female workers.

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Garments Portfolio Preventing a COVID-19 health and supply chain crisis in the garments industry in Bangladesh CARE International and Marks & Spencer worked together in Bangladesh to strengthen community and factory health systems. This project built on a previous DFID-CARE-M&S-GlaxoSmithKline collaboration, the HALOW+ project. The project focussed on COVID-19 and GBV awareness and behavioural change for factory workers and community, training for health champions and committees, supporting the functioning of satellite clinics, setting up digital wellbeing centres, support to COVID-19 testing and quarantining, and providing capacity building across 25 factories and 15 communities.

266,560

Supporting women in the garments industry to earn a living, stay safe and be respected in a COVID-19 environment in Bangladesh Multiple garments retail brands including Arco, Dimensions, M&S, New Look, Primark, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco joined forces with the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) to provide training and technical support to 20 factories in Bangladesh including COVID-19 occupational health and safety training for factory workers and managers.

Six factories assessed as having the greatest need, were provided with safety kits, including masks and sanitisers, and additional technical capacity building for the factories’ Safety Committees. Wider learning has been shared through an Expert Support Network to increase understanding of how to best implement the ETI Base Code in the context of a pandemic.

25,260

workers and community people have been linked to health services, provided with GBV training, PPE, primary health services, or made aware of COVID-19 risks amongst others.

workers in total have used the Quizrr tablet-based training modules to learn more about COVID-19 risks and OHS.

47,000 employees benefited, of which 46% were women

Animation from ETI & Quizrr’s OHS / Covid-19 awareness raising training showing Rokeya, a female supervisor and one of the main characters in the storyboard

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Business Partnerships as a Force for Good: Partnerships Building Back Better and Greener from the Pandemic

By Mehnaz Bhaur, Project Director, BP4GG

Learning from VSCF

Even before the Pandemic, the financing gap to meet the Sustainable Development Goals was estimated at around US$ 3 trillion (OECD, 2014). COVID-19 has pushed approximately 150 million additional people into poverty this year, 47 million of them are women and girls (World Bank Group, 2021) and has impacted supply chains adversely. Agriculture and garments are two supply chains which are hit hardest and also employ large numbers of vulnerable people including women across Africa and Asia. Evidence shows that in a pandemic, the most vulnerable people are impacted disproportionately more.

In line with the G7 summit in June 2021, BP4GG organised the second in a series of high-level learning events on the theme ‘Building Back Better from the pandemic’ on 26 May 2021. The event was attended by over 750 people from across FCDO and all Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility partner entities and comprised of different formats from live panel discussion and live written chat discussion to prerecorded fireside chat interviews. There was also a private roundtable discussion on donor-business partnerships which provided a safe space for a deepdive on what makes donor-business partnerships work best. Three broad lessons emerged from the event: Lesson 1: Balance immediate support with longer term benefits In the case of a pandemic, time is of the essence and it is critical to deliver support to those who need it most, when they need it most. But what is equally important is not to get lost in the immediate needs alone. Building back better requires balancing immediate response with an eye on the longer term so that the benefits of recovery are not lost over time. Recovery should lead to resilience to sustainable development.

Lesson 2: Listen, learn and adapt Evidence is central to designing relevant projects. But what is even more important is to be able to continue to deliver relevant projects. During a pandemic, the context changes very rapidly, on a monthly, weekly and, in some cases, on a daily basis. What could be a relevant intervention at the start of the project may not remain so relevant after a few weeks or months into delivery. Hence the need to continually check in with the target population during the implementation is greater for emergency response projects that aim to build back better. Listening

to the most vulnerable people during the project delivery helps undertake adaptive management and responsive course corrections which keep project activities relevant, leading to real results and impact.

Lesson 3: Partnerships do more with less Resources are scarce in an emergency situation. And urgent action is critical. There is a tenuous relationship between these two competing asks. To be able to build back better, the modality used for delivery needs to be one which can deliver more with less.

Partnerships are, therefore, central to building back better. The need for coordinated action is even more relevant during times of crises like the pandemic.

Since partnerships between a range of players need time to build trust, leveraging existing relationships and using those as building blocks to a strong and lasting relationship can help reduce time to impact while delivering more with less.

Our Conclusion There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Staying flexible, responsive and adaptive to an ever-changing context against the backdrop of the pandemic can help enhance the development impact for the most vulnerable people including women.

During the times of crises, multi-party partnerships can serve as a credible modality to build back better and can act as a force for good in the world yielding economic, social and environmental impact for the most vulnerable people in the global value chains.

Female farmers at CMS Mutira receiving seeds for kitchen garden Photo credit: Partner Africa

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BP4GG Business Roundtable: Listening to the UK Business

By Georgina Duffin, Private Sector Analyst, BP4GG

On 29 July 2021 representatives from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Business Partnerships for Global Goals (BP4GG) implementing team convened a roundtable event with BP4GG business partners. The objective was to listen to UK business on how the FCDO can engage with them in building resilient supply chains and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially drawing on lessons learned from the BP4GG partnership projects.

Eighteen business representatives and eight FCDO team members participated in the Roundtable.

The roundtable was timely as the FCDO Responsible Business and Business Engagement Team (RBUBE) is currently developing future engagement plans.

A consultation opened in July on the FCDO’s new International Development Strategy which will set out the UK government’s approach to international development over the next decade.

The private sector has a critical role to play in aligning their business models to support the SDGs, while government creates the enabling environment for this. Working together is the only way to address global challenges, including that of reducing emissions to net-zero by 2050.

Messages from business leaders included: Bring together stakeholders and themes • FCDO has the convening power which can help galvanise business action toward meeting Global Goals. FCDO support is needed to help understand emerging and systemic issues and to catalyse business response to these by bringing them together in a pre-competitive space.

• FCDO could better understand how businesses work including the complexities of their supply chains, and different pressures on operations.

To do this, FCDO needs to create a direct link with business to understand their perspective ‘at the sharp end’ of making trade work better.

• The important role of local actors in delivering initiatives, from NGOs, civil society or otherwise

in being able to understand the context and operate on the ground. FCDO can help to forge these links between business and notfor-profit organisations and NGOs. • FCDO can also bring ideas together so there’s coherence between issues, such as climate change and human rights.

Provide an enabling environment for sustainability

• It’s a challenge to balance commercial and sustainable considerations for business. FCDO can play a role in crafting data-driven business cases, plus legislation, to help tip this balance for sustainability.

• Business needs help to manage risk when pursuing the SDGs, and guidance on the wider government agenda.

Build a proactive strategy for partnership and action

• A need for agile and opportunistic responses to

challenges, able to rapidly bring together coalitions of action, source funding, and put governance systems in place to ensure delivery against objectives.

• The importance of planning ahead, (as far as possible), and continuity of funding to ensure the on-going sustainability of initiatives • Sometimes the cost of engaging with FCDO projects is high for business, this needs to be considered when designing future partnerships.

• UK Government could work with trading partner governments on broader issues that impact on supply chains, to support environment for achievement of SDGs and climate resilience.

• Business needs guidance on how they can engage with the FCDO and wider UK Government.

The UK government could make it easier for businesses to navigate to relevant government entities and information platforms for engagement, particularly in central government in the UK. Thanking business partners for their engagement in the Roundtable, Ian Felton noted that the learning gathered at the event will influence FCDO’s thinking on next steps and commented on the coherence between the Business Roundtable feedback and comments received in other fora.

Flower worker preparing flowers for export Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

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Ghana Field Visit: Witnessing how cocoa unions have implemented grants to secure livelihoods in the face of COVID-19 and other challenges Countries: Ghana

By Karen Smith, Agriculture Projects Lead, BP4GG

In late May Karen Smith, BP4GG’s Agriculture Lead, travelled to Ghana to visit the cocoa cooperative unions supported by the Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund, a project led by Fairtrade and cofunded by Mondelēz International through Cocoa Life. In this article, Karen describes her visit. ‘’I received a very warm welcome from the Fairtrade Africa team who organised two trips for me to visit two unions in the west of Ghana (Bia West and Amansie West) as well as Fanteakwa which is a short drive north of Accra.

During these visits I met both union committee members and cocoa farmers who received grants from the Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund to introduce new income generating activities (IGAs) to complement and supplement their revenues from cocoa farming. It was clear that this was a pressing need since climate change is already impacting these farming communities with irregular rainfall patterns and hotter weather affecting production. The communities had also felt the impact of COVID-19, particularly when schools were closed and children had to be looked after at home. Some of the female farmers I met at Amansie West reported that this had sadly led to a rise in teenage pregnancies. I also witnessed other major challenges for the farmers: gold mining activities which leave land unusable for farming, and the untreatable cocoa swollen shoot disease (CSSD) which can decimate cocoa farms.

The project’s grant strategy was designed to make sure that each union received funds proportionate to their membership and to encourage female participation. Fairtrade have published a learning brief which explains the rationale behind the grant strategy, its success, and the learnings gained during implementation. A total of 37 different activities were funded, ranging from planting crops such as yam and cassava to poultry and fish farming as well as non-farm projects such as soapmaking and bread making.

All the farmers I met were optimistic about the immediate and long-term benefits of the new crops they were planting. Farmer Yakubu Lanbom in Bia West had used his grant to plant rice on land allocated by the local chief, using a climate smart variety that withstands drier conditions. He had had to cut down all his cocoa trees because of CSSD and it will be three to four years before the new trees will yield pods. Income from rice production will be critical to help him manage in the meantime and will additionally provide nutrition for his family.

Soapmaking was a very popular activity for the women manufacturers I met at Fanteakwa. They were very pleased to be able to earn additional income making soap from ingredients that include cocoa husks. The products are being sold locally at prices between 2 – 10 GHS (£0.15 - £1.25) and within a few weeks of setting up, the group had already generated revenues of around £400.

Fairtrade have calculated that, with household members taken into account, nearly 8,000 people have benefited from a new income and/or food source as a result of the project. Further results are outlined in the Fairtrade project report in this newsletter. Not only are the benefits being seen already, but when I visited the Cocoa Life team in Accra, they explained that they would be helping the unions to develop business plans over the coming year to ensure that the IGAs were sustained”.

Amansie west union leader with coco yam Photo Credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

Fanteakwa soap makers with their products Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

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Risk management through diversification

By Karen Smith, Agriculture Projects Lead, BP4GG

The VSCF has tracked the many ways in which the pandemic has impacted on African suppliers and farmers, including disruption to logistics, reduced access to inputs and labour, increases in living costs, increasing the vulnerability of farmers reliant on a single crop. Adopting new business activities can reduce reliance on a single, or small number, of revenue streams. Two projects in the VSCF agriculture portfolio have therefore used this strategy of diversification to decrease risk in farm and farmer incomes.

The Fairtrade-led Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund, co-sponsored by Mondelēz International, used grants to implement both crop and non-crop activities which were beyond the usual scope of the cocoa unions and farmers. The unions each selected between two and six different income generating activities (IGAs) to trial and these were successfully implemented over five months.

The IGAs are already leading to additional revenues and employment for farmers and by March 2022, the benefits are projected to reach 15,500 farmers.

In Kenya, the Resilience in Flower Supply Chains project, led by Fairtrade and MM Flowers, also used micro-grants awarded to farm workers to catalyse additional income streams. This innovation started with ‘Leadership for Life’ training for 171 staff at Longonot, Star, K-Gorge, and Fleur Africa farms, conducted by Emerging Leaders in AprilMay 2021. Forty of the participants were subsequently chosen to receive a micro-grant of £100 as seed funding for their business idea. Within a month of the training, all those provided with seed funding had commenced businesses as well as 45% of those who had just received training; the most popular IGAs chosen were animal farming, crop and clothing sales. The average IGA revenues were also reported to be an impressive 2/3 of workers’ salaries within two months of starting.

The Resilience in Flower Supply Chains project also

sought to assist the four target flower farms in Kenya to find alternatives to their core business to protect against future shocks. In discussion with the farms, the ideas selected were beekeeping, briquette making, ‘packed at source’ flowers and summer flower breeding.

The initiatives are at an early stage, but all the farms have reported their commitment and enthusiasm.

Star farm management, for example, intend to develop their breeding project: “The training that the staff have received will enable them to successfully breed new varieties. It is our intention to scale up the planting to increase the stock of summer flowers and to explore different markets for our products.”

Further details and the lessons learned from theses diversification activities can be found in Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Brief No. 7: Diversifying income streams is an effective resilience strategy for African farms and farmers.

Faith from Fleur Africa with her new cow Photo credit: Emerging Leaders

Explaining the number of flowers in a bouquet, Kongoni Gorge farm.

PHOTO CREDIT NATURES RIGHTS.

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Gender-Based Violence Related Interventions under Preventing COVID-19 Garment Health Worker and Supply Chain Crisis (VSCF) Project

By Urban Health Unit- CARE Bangladesh

Gender-based violence (GBV) increases during every type of emergency – whether economic crises, conflict or disease outbreaks. Pre-existing patriarchal social norms and gender inequalities, economic and social stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an exponential increase in GBV. Gender-based violence has seen a rise amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, revealed by the Rapid Assessment Findings on COVID-19 Effects on Urban Health by CARE Bangladesh.

It was found that 64% faced problems only for being women, and 97% faced personal/domestic issues. Along with health access and linkage activities to address and reduce GBV, the VSCF project has implemented diverse activities in 25 project factories and 15 adjacent communities where GBV was a significant focus area.

Significant Results

• 9% increase in the knowledge of

the factors of sexual harassment.

• 25% increase in the reliability

on the factories’ anti-sexual harassment committee for any support regarding GBV.

• 44% of people in the community

know laws related to domestic violence in the communities. 25% and 14% increase in the knowledge on sexual harassment and GBV, respectively, in the communities.

• 100% of workers feel safe in the

working environment in the factories.

• 100% of the workers know

where to get support regarding any GBV related cases.

• On a scale from 1 to 5, workers

have a rating of 4.41 when asked about the usefulness of the GBV awareness sessions

Case Study Murshida (30) works as a helping hand and her husband is a carpenter. She has two sons - one reads in Class 2, and the other is two months old. They live in Ward-17 of Chandona in the Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) area. Murshida’s husband didn’t give Murshida any money from his income. He was a drunkard and often used to beat Murshida. “He (Murshida’s husband) used to tell me that I should eat only one meal a day and starve”, says Murshida. Life was difficult for Murshida, and she suffered many tortures from her husband. Seeing all this, her neighbour Salma told her to go for a Gender-based Violence (GBV) meeting held at Tofazzel Hossain Club by the VSCF project. “I told Salma apa that my husband wouldn’t agree to go for this meeting. Salma apa convinced my husband herself”, says Murshida.

In the meeting, through a couple-counsellor, they both put forward their concerns, negotiated, and Murshida’s husband realised that he was doing something very wrong. “My husband apologised to me after coming from the meeting. He said he won’t repeat those things and would also quit drinking”, says smiling Murshida. Murshida feels her life is changed because of this meeting and thanks Laily apa, Salma apa from the VSCF project and CARE Bangladesh for their support.

Murshida, a resident of ward-17, Gazipur City, Bangladesh Photo Credit: CARE International

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Leveraging digital tools to support factories and garment workers

By Rahul Malik, Garments Projects Lead, BP4GG & Nicola Doody, Business Innovations Advisor, BP4GG

On 29 June 2021, the VSCF organised its third cross garments portfolio event in its Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Series. The session brought together the garment sector projects partners on the topic of leveraging digital tools in times of crisis to support factories and garment workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the way we interact and work. All four garment Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility (VSCF) projects were heavily reliant on digital technology to deliver a spectrum of programmatic work which was focused on safeguarding workers, combatting gender inequalities and increasing supply chain transparency. Digital tools are becoming a key tenet of successful development programmes and many initiatives now leverage these capabilities to drive long-term impact, cost efficiency and access. These benefits were even more important when faced with the challenges the pandemic brought when delivering programmes to garment workers and their communities in Bangladesh and Myanmar. With travel restrictions and mandated lockdowns, delivering programmes face-to-face was, at times, impossible. When able to open, garment factories were under increased pressure, balancing the health risk and interruption that comes with face-to-face programming during a health pandemic, whilst also catching up with delayed production.

As these projects come to an end, the programme has reflected not only on the benefits these tools have brought but also on several learnings for the future use of digital tools in programming. Whilst some of these learnings are specific to the use of digital tools in the time of crisis, they are also applicable to any programme leveraging digital tools. There were consistent benefits in using digital tools across the VSCF garment projects. It provided significant reach in a short time frame, provided real time monitoring and feedback and helped gain factory and user buy in to the initiatives. Some of the learnings are summarised below: 1. In a time of crisis, starting with what you have can fast track impact Each of the VSCF projects was designed and delivered during the time of a health crisis. There was a recognition across partners that impact needed to be achieved as quickly as possible given the focus on supporting garments workers to stay safe in a COVID-19 environment. Wherever possible it was therefore felt this was not the time to test new technology or technology partnerships. New

technology and partnerships often have teething problems, requiring changes and fixes as it is used by its target audience. As a result, whilst impactful, it can take longer for programmes to ramp up and reach the full target audience.

2. Digital alone is often not the answer Whilst digital tools and technology were leveraged within each of the VSCF garments projects, there was also a strong recognition that digital tools alone would not result in the impact needed, particularly given the well documented, unintended consequence of marginalisation when relying on digital technologies to deliver programmes. Those who lack access to internet connectivity, digital skills, or affordable devices are being left behind.

Whilst overcoming challenges in providing face to face support was difficult, a blend of digital and nondigital approaches was important to ensure inclusion and achieve target reach.

3. Developed the right way, digital tooling can help build digital literacy As noted, there was a risk of excluding the most marginalised target users of the VSCF projects through the utilisation of digital tools. There was, however, a realisation that through humancentred design the VSCF projects could be an opportunity to build the confidence and literacy of those who may not have previously engaged with digital tools. It must be noted, however, that when developing and implementing programmes, consideration should be given so users do not feel pressured into using a tool they do not feel comfortable with or cannot afford to use. For each of the VSCF projects additional channels were used to drive as much inclusion as possible.

Sustainability of the digital tools The use of digital tools through the VSCF projects, whilst with some issues, has been a key factor in their notable success in delivering relevant services to workers, at pace and at scale within a sector in crisis.

Looking forward, careful consideration should be given to the sustainability of these tools, and their role in the resilience of the sector to future shocks; considering both financial sustainability and user engagement.

The garments industry needs to come together to consider how these tools can be utilised in other settings and supported from a financial standpoint so that others can benefit from their content.

Maya health service app supported by Care International Photo credit: CARE International

Community member having an online consultation with a doctor at a wellbeing centre Photo credit: CARE International

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The ‘Sea Freight Flowers’ project, led by Flamingo Horticulture, with IPL, Xpol, Flower Hub, Kuehne & Nagel, CMA, Maersk, PSI, FlowerWatch and others Country: Kenya

Latest project news

Flamingo Horticulture Limited, together with service companies Practical Solutions International and FlowerWatch, freight forwarders Kuehne & Nagel, and shipping companies CMA and Maersk, piloted sea freighting of flowers from Kenya to the UK and Europe as a lower-carbon, cost-effective alternative to air freight. Triggered by reduced air freight availability and escalating prices due to the pandemic, the project engaged supply chain partners to introduce innovations and new processes, evaluate the pilot, share and encourage more flower farms to trial sea freight through creating market linkages in the sector in Kenya.

BP4GG has published a business case for sea freight flowers which will be disseminated in Kenya this autumn through two virtual events, alongside recommendations from a case study on the project and a study conducted on sea freight for Kenyan agricultural exports by the Dutch Embassy. The events intend to both share the learnings from the project and stimulate more co-ordination and investment among Kenyan industry players and government to expand the sea freight opportunity.

The project concluded this quarter, having successfully delivered all of its objectives. Eighteen flower farms with around 18,000 employees were involved in the sea freight trials, and the results of these show that if protocols and logistics are managed well, transporting flowers by sea from Kenya to Europe is just as viable as air freight. Two groups of exporters have continued to ship flowers regularly, including on a new, faster route direct to Southampton via Jeddah.

A carbon study commissioned by the project and using the latest information available shows that sea freight transportation of flowers generates around 5% emissions of the equivalent volume by air freight. An economic analysis was also conducted which shows that commercially material savings can be achieved for ‘heavy’ roses and carnations but are less significant for lighter flower varieties. The average saving for sea vs air freight based on trial data was $4,934 per container. Interviews with industry experts support a conservative estimated sea freight uptake of 10% in the medium term (5 years) and 25% in the long term (10 years), equating to cumulative direct savings of $141.8m and $305.9m over ten years. These projections also show that sea freight related growth could stimulate between 7,500 and 15,000 new jobs in ten years.

Opportunities are now being explored by FlowerWatch and PSI with Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) and Ethiopian growers to open up new markets. Flamingo will continue to explore innovations initiated under the project such as improved packaging, the use of cold stores to extend flower life, and expansion of new crops (e.g. chrysanthemums) which will become viable in Kenya because of sea freight.

Preparing a box of flowers for sea freight transport Photo credit: Flamingo Horticulture

Direct savings of sea freight vs air freight

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Latest project news The ‘Resilience in Flower Supply Chains’ project, led by Fairtrade Foundation and MM Flowers, with Coventry University, Co-op, FNET, M&S, Tesco, and Women Working Worldwide

The ‘Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund’ project, led by Fairtrade with Mondelēz International Country: Ghana

Country: Kenya

Fairtrade Foundation and MM Flowers joined forces with UK retailers Co-op, M&S, and Tesco, as well as FNET, Coventry University and Women Working Worldwide to provide immediate relief from COVID-19 disruption for Kenyan flower workers through sustainable workplace and fairer trade improvements. This project provided direct support to workers and farmers with training and support to new income generating activities (IGA), and improved food security through kitchen, shared worker and nutritional gardens. Many more received indirect support through health information, contributing towards business continuity for farms, and security of supply for buyers and consumers.

The project wrapped up in June and submitted results that exceeded most of their targets. 2,973 workers across the farms supported have benefitted from increased access to grown food. Over 6,000 workers received health packs and almost 109,000 people were reached with health information through the COVID-19 communication campaign.

This quarter the project delivered training to 171 workers on developing income generating activities (IGAs) and £100 grants were disbursed to 40 workers.

Emerging Leaders, who led the work, reported that 71% of those surveyed went on to start an IGA after the training - this included 100% of grant recipients and 45% of those who did not receive a grant but still started a project. A case study report was prepared with stories from 13 of the beneficiaries. Grant activities for four farm diversification projects were completed this quarter at Rainforest, K-Gorge, Star, and Longonot farms. All four farms have committed to continue these activities and have invested both time and resources.

A second worker voice call cycle was implemented in May and Coventry University’s final report on UK market behaviours was completed in June, incorporating feedback and recommendations from five retailer roundtables held during the project. These were both key inputs to a Policy Paper produced by the project, as well as the earlier trade model survey, which made recommendations on how to develop a fairer, more resilient flower sector. The key recommendation is to set up a British Covenant for Sustainable Flowers, an agenda that Fairtrade and partners will continue to pursue.

Fairtrade worked with Mondelēz International in Ghana to ensure cocoa farmers and their families remained resilient to the pandemic and to COVID-like shocks through accelerating income diversification and climatesmart farming. The project partnered with Mondelēz International’s Cocoa Life sustainability programme in Ghana, and specifically built on the ‘Climate Change and Organisational Strengthening Programme’ (CCOSP). It provided nine farmer unions with grants to diversify their income through start-up capital for new business models.

The nine unions supported by the project completed their grant activities and submitted their final reports in June. Four of the unions had a little additional coaching and support from Fairtrade Africa during the final period which substantially improved their delivery.

To date, Fairtrade estimate that approximately 6,157 union members benefitted from training, received planting materials or inputs, or were employed by the unions’ income generating activities (IGAs).

Hives in situ at rainforest farm.

Photo credit: Rainforest Farm

Amansie west union committee and support team Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

7,931 farmer household members are also already benefitting indirectly from new income or new/cheaper food sources. The number of direct beneficiaries is expected to rise to 15,500 as crops are harvested later this year and non-crop IGAs mature.

During the quarter, 94 union leaders from two unions were trained on governance and leadership; the remaining seven unions will be trained under the continuing Cocoa Life programme. Training on environmental management was also delivered to union and environmental committee leaders.

Fairtrade and Cocoa Life will seek to deepen the impact of the grant facility by supporting the unions in developing their new activities into businesses through targeted training and technical assistance under the climate-smart income diversification workstream that will continue under the CCOSP until the end of 2022.

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Latest project news The ‘Securing Workers’ Rights in a COVID-19 Context’ project Led by the Ethical Trading Initiative, with Coop, Flamingo, MM Flowers, Minor Weir and Willis, Morrisons, Partner Africa, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Union Roasted, and Waitrose Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) brought together a coalition of UK food retailers including Co-op, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose, to provide technical assistance to 11 farm sites across four countries in East and Southern Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Site-level support focused on rebuilding business and making the working environment COVID-19 safe. As the impact of COVID-19 differed a lot per farm, technical assistance delivered to each farm was tailored to its needs. Certain interventions (such as the COVID-19 trainings and Financial Literacy trainings) were implemented at multiple sites. Other interventions were implemented at one site only. Training content and lessons learned through the project were shared at regional and international levels online. All the 11 suppliers that were involved in the project showed they are implementing the learnings from the trainings and attaining good practice recommended by the project. Emerging good practice were fed into the ETI Base Code (responsible practice guidelines), with examples disseminated for businesses’ adoption.

This quarter the project completed all the technical assistance planned for its targeted suppliers. Savings from the project were used to send 10 text messages each to 2,170 workers and farmers with information on COVID-19 health and safety, stigma and vaccinations.

In June, a short webinar was held to launch ResponseMed’s COVID-19 response pack and virtual management training and a learning event on business continuity was attended by 33 people. On the 13 July 2021, an ‘end of the project’ learning event reflected on achievements and shared learnings and attracted 61 attendees. A Business Continuity Resource Guide for African agrifood suppliers was also launched via a webinar, in June, and a case study report was produced and shared with stories from beneficiaries in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

The project team met with donors, suppliers, retailers and other programmes, such as the Shifting South project, to prepare for a virtual roundtable in July to discuss the opportunities and challenges of catalysing an ethical trade forum. The event attracted 56 attendees and Partner Africa and ETI will be developing a strategic partnership agreement building on this discussion to further improve working conditions in Africa.

Partner Africa will also continue working with Response Med after the end of the project to offer COVID-19 management training to East African agricultural suppliers. Partner Africa and ETI will also continue disseminating the resources that were produced as part of this project, such as the Business Continuity Guide and the COVID-19 Response Pack with their membership and clients.

Worker with vegetables from her kitchen garden, Flamingo Farm, Kenya Photo credit: Vincent Owino

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Latest project news The ‘Preventing a COVID-19 Garment Sector Health and Supply Chain Crisis in Bangladesh’ project, led by CARE International with Marks & Spencer & Primark Country: Bangladesh

CARE International and Marks & Spencer worked together in Bangladesh to prevent a health and supply chain crisis in the garments industry by strengthening community and factory health systems. This project built on a previous DFID-CARE-M&S-GlaxoSmithKline collaboration, the HALOW+ project. It focused on COVID-19 and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) awareness and behavioural change for factory workers and community, training for health champions and committees, supporting the functioning of satellite clinics, setting up digital wellbeing centres, support to COVID-19 testing and quarantining, and providing capacity building across 25 factories and 15 communities. After the closure of the grant to Impactt, as a result of the coup in Myanmar, funds were re-allocated to expand the support to workers in Bangladesh, and Primark joined this project partnership.

CARE successfully completed the Preventing COVID-19 Garment Health Worker and Supply Chain Crisis Project this quarter.

A total of 76,991 workers in 25 factories were reached directly with COVID-19, health & hygiene awarenessraising activities and 45,939 additional workers in another 14 factories were reached indirectly through the distribution of Behaviour Change and Communication (BCC) materials. When surveyed, 98% of all factory staff reported a safer and more protected working environment.

There was a 34% increase in the practice of health and hygiene measures, such as, wearing mask, handwashing frequently and maintaining safe distance, by the factory workers. More than 96% workers felt there is an improvement in the working environment of their factories.

Orientation on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) for general workers in 25 factories reached 73,530 workers. Across the factories, almost 100% of female workers recorded in the endline survey that they had increased knowledge on available GBV support in the factory which is an increase from 70% recorded in the baseline. The project also rolled out vaccination awareness and support. A total of 15,676 people (8,502 male, 7,174 female) were vaccinated from across the 25 factories. CARE was able to train a total of 201 master trainers and 609 health trainers along with 65 factory based medical staff on COVID-19 vaccination and its prevention for Primark suppliers. Finally, BCC materials on COVID-19 and vaccination were printed and distributed to 145 factories in Primark’s supply chain with a total of 379,479 workers.

Sustainability and exit planning workshops were organised with factory staff and community members, to strengthen their ownership and responsibility for the initiatives going forward.

Factory worker receiving Covid-19 vaccine Photo credit: CARE International

The end of project workshop showed that the success of this project was due in large part to the existing, strong partnerships CARE already had in place. These allowed CARE to move quickly, and build on proven concepts to deliver outcomes, and not have to start from scratch in the face of a new crisis.

Participants at a GBV training session Photo credit: CARE International

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Latest project news The ‘Hidden Supply Chains in Bangladesh’ project, led

by GoodWeave International, with Awaj Foundation, Monsoon Accessorize and VF Corporation Country: Bangladesh

The ‘Supporting women in the garment industry to earn a living, stay safe, and be respected in a COVID-19 environment’ project, led by the Ethical Trading Initiative with Arco, Dimensions, M&S, New Look, Primark, Sainsbury’s, Tesco Country: Bangladesh, with learning elsewhere

GoodWeave International worked with Bangladeshi not-for-profit Awaj Foundation, and international retailers Monsoon Accessorize and VF Corporation to support agency and resilience of informal garment workers in Bangladesh. Vulnerable workers and their family members were supported with emergency relief packages and information on COVID-19 prevention and workplace rights. The project mapped ready-made garment (RMG) supply chains – leveraging support from partner brands and four local suppliers -- and conducted announced and unannounced visits to Tier One and subcontracted factories. The project also conducted community-based research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on RMG workers and the risk of child and forced labour exploitation in informal supply chains. Due to increased funds in the third quarter, the project was able to support an additional 5,296 informal workers and their family members with emergency food relief and hygiene items.

GoodWeave successfully completed the Hidden Supply Chains in Bangladesh Project this quarter.

The project provided food to a total of 11,548 workers and family members. 71% of food packets were provided to informal workers and 80% to female workers. In addition, the project reached over 27,000 workers and family members with COVID-19 safety information, including 560 informal workers who also received awareness on workplace rights.

Garments retail brands Arco, Dimensions, M&S, New Look, Primark, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco joined forces with the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) to support women in supply chains within the garments sector by providing training and technical support, including distribution of PPE safety kits, to 20 factories in Bangladesh. The project delivered COVID-19 occupational health and safety training for factory workers and managers. In addition, six factories that were assessed as having the greatest need were provided with additional technical capacity building for the factories’ Safety Committees. The establishment of an Expert Support Network has provided a space for the exchange of information and best practices on factory-related OHS initiatives among RMG suppliers in Bangladesh to increase understanding of how to best implement the ETI Base Code in the context of a pandemic.

Emergency food distribution event in Narayanganj, Bangladesh Photo credit: © GoodWeave International / Magnifier Creatives

ETI has created an online learning resource with (project materials and user guides) to help additional brands and factories implement similar initiatives. ETI has also created a business case based on lessons learnt from the VSCF initiative to provide support to additional suppliers, which was presented during a webinar and several partner brands have so far showed an interest in continuing with the OHS activities.

At the start, this project aimed to support at least 25,500 garments factory workers. Due to additional funds awarded in the third quarter, the project was able to support an additional 14 factories with safety kits, reaching 25,000 additional workers.

On 28 July 2021, an ‘end of the project’ webinar reflected on achievements and shared learnings and attracted 51 attendees.

This quarter, ETI successfully completed the Supporting Women in the Garment Industry Earn a Living, Stay Safe and Be Respected in a COVID-19 Environment project. ETI completed all management and worker trainings on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and COVID-19, developed a pool of 144 master trainers, distributed 28,360 safety kits in 14 factories and set up an expert support network with 67 suppliers as a regular knowledge and best practice sharing platform.

GoodWeave developed a feasibility assessment for continued programming in Bangladesh, and will investigate opportunities for future programming in the country. This was GoodWeave’s first intervention in Bangladesh and valuable learnings were gained through the VSCF project.

Quizrr’s tablet-based training reached an additional 2,866 workers bringing the total number up to 25,262 workers (14,395 / 56.9% female). Additionally, 847 supervisors (123 / 14.5% female) and 128 managers (27 / 21% female) also received the training. The feedback received by ETI has been very positive.

Worker survey at Awaj’s women café in Mirpur Photo credit: © GoodWeave International

An open-source QR-code expanding the reach of the awareness raising training beyond the engaged factories has also been introduced, generating several lessons learnt for the ETI team on factors to consider when rolling out similar activities in the future. 50,000 QR code stickers were distributed. The QR code provides the digital awareness training as an app-based free training to be downloaded on Google Play until May 2022.

Screenshot from the tablet-based training, highlighting women in leadership roles Photo credit: ETI

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The Importance of ‘Beyond’

By Mihaela Balan, Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Lead, BP4GG

‘Listening and Learning’: using beneficiary feedback to drive better commercial and social performance.

Businesses have evolved financial and operations metrics to drive their strategy and delivery. But do they have data to measure, manage and maximize their impact?

Even with the best intentions, rigorous accountability of operational and financial targets usually takes precedence, with the hope that meeting these will inevitably further their impact objectives.

In this article, we share findings from our grants impact assessments, and consider what they [could] mean for retailers & brands ‘beyond’.

Introduction In the previous BP4GG newsletter, we wrote about the importance of collecting data on impact ‘During’ interventions, and how this impact data can provide valuable information about what needs to be adapated.

We also described how impact data can be collected through listening to partners and to beneficiaires, and how we might learn from businesses in terms of how they listen to their customers. With this in mind, BP4GG designed mid-way rapid validations [RVs] to listen to beneficiaries while they were still receiving services [‘during’], and we have used this information to help us adapt interventions.

We continued to listen to beneficiaries this quarter. The smaller RVs were followed by two comprehensive sectorlevel impact assessments in June, towards the end of the grants period. The impact measurement company, 60dB conducted these studies for us. The first study, a ‘beneficiary feedback study’, listened to the voices of nearly 800 workers across seven projects, two sectors and seven countries. In the second study, a ‘suppliers feedback study’, we heard from 89 managers in a representative sample of our 136 suppliers. Both studies were conducted using telephone interviews.

What have we heard?

BP4GG is impacting positively on supply chain workers: most beneficiaries now have a greater sense of safety and security at work, their ability to cope with the pandemic has increased, and, they have increased confidence to earn an income.

• 98% of suppliers say the way they run their business has very much improved or improved; • Due to VCSF support, 77% of suppliers have seen a significant positive effect and 23% of suppliers some positive effect on their effort to recover from the pandemic.

Similarly, the study revealed positive impact for suppliers: all suppliers said the support is ‘important’ or ‘very important to help them deal with the pandemic; and significantly, two in three managers reported better relationships with their brands. All are more positive about their factory/farm than when the pandemic started; all will continue implementing changes introduced beyond the lifetime of the VSCF. What does it mean?

Responsible business is fundamental to global retail companies. Retailers are committed to sourcing responsibly and working closely with their suppliers to make sure they respect human rights, promote decent working conditions and improve sustainability across their supply base. BP4GG, a partnership with 18 retailers, reflects this commitment and demonstrates its impact.

Our end of project assessment identified many effects that the BP4GG initiative has had on suppliers & their workers. Retailers can now use these insights to manage and maximise their own impact intentions.

Do our partners have data to manage and maximize ongoing impact?

The mantra ‘We manage what we measure’ is pertinent here; and it depends on clear data.

Through the VSCF we have built and demonstrated a valuable ‘Lean DataSM’ model of how to collect data to manage impact.² This does not need to be cumbersome and expensive. Our model is simple, and grounded in perhaps the most uncomplicated activity, listening to people in our ‘supply chains’, using mobile technology.

If impact matters, then hearing directly from workers, farmers, managers, about what is important for them, and what is working for them, matters.

By looking at the BP4GG findings, retail brands can now choose forms of impact that matter to them and to the people in their supply chains and can plan to manage for impact beyond. Deploying lean data as a business intelligence tool, to identify risks in supply chains, to drive value along more transparent chains and achieve impact data can sit alongside strategy and operations to drive more sustainable business performance.

• 92% of workers report safety improvements in workplace • 63% have improved confidence in earning an income now.

• 72% of B4GG beneficiaries are living on below $5.5 a day

2 Lean Data is an approach to impact measurement that focuses on speed, repeatability and comparability through the use of phone surveys.

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Beneficiary Voices “I have learnt about savings, finance management and how to budget and prioritise. I have learnt that saving is very important in every business. As a small-scale farmer, I need to consider myself as an employee in the business and pay myself about 20% of the sales I make. These savings will help me later in life to sort emergency cases such as paying for hospital bills.”

Bernard Mwenda, a small-scale farmer, who has attended financial management training as part of the ETI project.

Photo credit: Partner Africa

Bernard Mwenda, a small-scale farmer in Kenya Project: : ‘Securing workers’ rights in a COVID-19 context in East African agriculture supply chains’, ETI, Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

Elizabeth Tigere, a smallholder farmer, harvesting vegetables supported by the nutritional garden training as part of the ETI project.

Photo credit: Partner Africa

“Before the training I used to struggle a lot, I became a widow at a young age.

With young children to raise I focused on raising them. After the training, I got past my hopeless thinking, learnt that even with my meagre finances I can still save up and set up a business.

Thanks to the grant I received from Emerging Leaders, I have now started a clothes selling business that is helping me to achieve my desired income.”

“The vegetable garden is greatly appreciated. The project was implemented at the right time. During the lock down there was no access to vegetable markets due to national lock down measures implemented by the government. In addition, after a day’s work, it is important to rest instead of going to the market to buy vegetables, these are readily available. This gave the family more time to spend together rather than spending time trying to bargain with vendors to buy vegetables cheaply. The free vegetables have gone a long way in ensuring pay money is channelled to other important responsibilities such as paying for school fees.”

Elizabeth Tigere, a smallholder farmer who has benefitted from the nutritional garden support Project: ‘Securing workers’ rights in a COVID-19 context in East African agriculture supply chains’, ETI, Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

Selina, a farm worker a K-Gorge, Kenya, who has received training and funding as part of the IGA workstream.

Selina working in her clothes business which she has set up from the grant she received from emerging leaders.

Photo credit: Emerging Leaders

Amansie west committee members with their yam crop Photo credit: Karen Smith, BP4GG

Project: ‘Resilience in Flower Supply Chains’, Fairtrade and MM Flowers, Country: Kenya

“The project] has been an eye opener for farmers not to depend solely on their cocoa farmers and also engage in the cultivation of other staple crops. As a result, family demands or burdens will be greatly minimised so long as the project keeps running. We thank you all for your support. The adverse weather has made farmers depend on seasonal crops such as cocoa hence the introduction of the project has made farmers have food when the seasonal crops are not available…The COVID-19 pandemic affected the local economy and farmers in particular and hence the project has helped them to have food available during the period.”

Feedback from Amansie West union leaders in Ghana Project: ‘Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund’, Fairtrade and Mondelēz International, Country: Ghana

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A women’s health session in Gazipur City Corporation, Bangladesh Photo credit: CARE International

“CARE Bangladesh and the VSCF project has helped the Gazipur City Corporation in many ways. In GCC, 4 institutes are responsible for girl child/ adolescent health services. We used to arrange seminars, but no one has ever reached out to them like the CARE Bangladesh did. With their sessions on menstrual hygiene, vaccination campaign and distribution of sanitary pads, the overall awareness of the children has risen. Now we don’t feel shy anymore because the VSCF has taught us how to openly discuss such topics. We were also able to distribute free sanitary napkins in our blood sample collecting booths for COVID-19.

If we want to realise the 2021 vision for Bangladesh, we must take into account the health of our women workers.”

“[The financial literacy training provided on this project] has helped the workers to know more on the COVID-19 and have knowledge on the financial literacy. We have trained all workers and we take precaution all the time, we have hand washing facilities in place and each staff has their own food container to avoid eating at the canteen in a small spaced area.”

Feedback on training at Africado Ltd, Tanzania Project: ‘Securing workers’ rights in a COVID-19 context in East African agriculture supply chains’, ETI, Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

A female farm worker participating in a training session offered by Africado ltd as part of the ETI project Photo credit: Partner Africa

“We went through an extensive training where I learned about balanced diet, handwashing and important information about COVID vaccine registration process.

[After receiving the training] I can now register others in my neighbourhood for vaccination through the app. It feels so good to be of any help to others ”

Welfare Officer, Gazipur City Corporation Bangladesh Project: ‘Preventing COVID-19 Garment Health and Supply Chain Crisis in Bangladesh’, CARE International, Country: Bangladesh

Lata Sohana Islam, a COVID-19 community volunteer, Bangladesh

“The Training assistance on COVID-19 has been effective and very useful, it has been great to give our staff a broader perspective on the pandemic and counteract some of the misinformation. It has not helped any of the real challenges the staff have faced with restricted access to transport and healthcare they are facing.”

Feedback on training at Hidden Valley Horticulture, Zimbabwe Selection of Covid-19 prevention posters displayed at hidden valley horticulture, Zimbabwe Photo credit: Partner Africa

Project: ‘Securing workers’ rights in a COVID-19 context in East African agriculture supply chains’, ETI, Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

Project: ‘Preventing COVID-19 Garment Health and Supply Chain Crisis in Bangladesh’, CARE International, Country: Bangladesh

Lata Sohana Islam, a Covid-19 Community Volunteer, Bangladesh Photo credit: CARE International

Newsletter 4 I Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Series I BP4GG I Mott MacDonald I 22

What do our partners say “The biggest achievement is embedding occupational health and safety into the factory operations, training staff to identify risks and how to mitigate those risks. The project has brought us closer together with the suppliers and strengthened these relationships.”

“[I have been] Very impressed with the outcomes exceeding expectations on some of the focused areas. What has really been achieved over the last 12 months has been impressive due to partners on the ground, responding to the challenges as they arose.”

Danny Hobson, Head of Ethics and Sustainability, Arco Ltd

Tania Moodley, Responsible Sourcing Manager, Tesco

“We have found from our factories that earlier they had maintained the COVID-safety SOPs but not in an organised manner. But through this project, they understand what they need to do and how to do this also in the future, they can plan. The managers are more trained and aware of what to do. Achievement is that our factory managers are more aware, and they can do this better in future.”

Shahpar Sultana, Senior Specialist, Responsible Sourcing, Tesco Sourcing

“What has been achieved in the very short space of time is very impressive.

The biggest achievement is some of the learning events which have focused on really key issues. The project has had a huge breadth of different interventions, which is great.”

Aisha Aswani, Senior Human Rights & Ethical Trading Manager, Co-op

“This is a great example of how one and one becomes much more than two. The Fairtrade and Cocoa Life programme already had a partnership and interworking in place but having the amplification and support of FCDO to allow us go faster and accelerate what was really needed due to COVID-19 and what was really beneficial” Cathy Pieters, Senior Director Sustainable Ingredients & Cocoa Life, Mondelēz International

“This [the project] has come at a time where we could not travel, could not have a direct achievement like before and we have, through VSCF, achieved an awful lot and have kept a dialogue going on the ground. The achievement is getting exposure on sources from the ground, that could not have happened without this project.”

David Alder, Group Technical Director at Minor, Weir and Willis Ltd

“Getting the farm managers and farmers to think beyond the rose box through farm diversification was an excellent innovation. They are thinking about the future.”

Caroline Downey, Sustainable Sourcing Manager, MM Flowers

“The best parts of a partnership have been demonstrated in this project. We have a long history with CARE. The ability to build on that partnership and the trust made it a real fast-tracked start of the project.”

Fiona Sadler, Global Head of Ethical Trading, Marks and Spencer

“Women’s empowerment is a cross-cutting theme of Cocoa Life. Connecting a climate-smart approach to empowering women has been very helpful.”

Cathy Pieters, Senior Director Sustainable Ingredients & Cocoa Life, Mondelez

“Businesses have an important role to play to ensure people within their operations and values chains are safe, treated with dignity and can prosper. COVID-19 poses a critical threat to Bangladesh garment workers, with hundreds of thousands of people in dense areas at risk. We are excited to continue to work with Marks and Spencer in partnership with FCDO to ensure workers and communities have access to relevant information, facilities and services to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

Laura Hawkesford, Head of Private Sector Engagement, CARE International UK

“The sum of all of us together is way more than us working as individuals.

M&S are not health experts, and are not set up to respond to crises like COVID – we need experts and we need the resources of a partner like FCDO. M&S does not want to work alone, but wants to continue working in collaboration in these type of structures. The results have been awesome in the face of a terrible crisis.”

Lydia Hopton, Ethical Trade Manager, M&S

“The information gathered in this program will help VF enhance its policies and processes to advance the systemic change needed to address issues hidden deep within the apparel industry’s global supply chains.”

Peter Higgins Vice President of Global Responsible Sourcing VF Corp

“VSCF is a programme which we have drawn on massively to show results in difficult times and in future programme designs.”

Kate Cooper, Acting SRO BP4GG, FCDO

“Getting everyone involved is the biggest achievement [of the project] and getting everyone to work together in a very collaborative way. Flamingo, XPOL, IPL were all linked but not necessarily working together in the same area earlier. According to me the biggest achievement is the dialogue with a wider range of partners that made the project work. Sharing and managing logistics equipment to de-risk the supply chain is really a key achievement through some unusual times” Ian Michell, Group Technical and Procurement Director, Flamingo Group International

“The learning gathered [at The Business Round Table] will influence our thinking on next steps and some comments match those received in other fora.”

Ian Felton, Head of Responsible Business and Business Engagement Team (RBUBE)

“These results are great. We need to think how to share this across the department and beyond. This is pure evidence and its great.”

Raania Rizvi, Project Responsible Officer BP4GG

BP4GG in the media Links to articles featuring BP4GG’s work this quarter

Events

Agriculture projects media coverage

• CARE International: Closing sessions with M&S factories, 13 & 15 July 2021

• Fairtrade Foundation article ‘Recommendations for building fairer, more sustainable and resilient flower supply chains in East Africa’’ • Fairtrade Foundation learning brief ‘Key learnings from design and implementation of resilience fund for cocoa farmers during the Covid-19 pandemic’ • Fairtrade Foundation learning brief ‘Reflecting on lessons learnt from the gender workstream’ • Fairtrade Foundation article ‘Better wages and working conditions on farms are key to East African flower sector’s post-pandemic recovery, Fairtrade and partners tell industry’ • Fairtrade Foundation Learning brief on income diversification

Business Partnerships as a Force for Good Learning Series VSCF Vision “To enable vulnerable people and supply chains to recover from and remain resilient to the economic and social impacts of COVID-19, by leveraging the reach and influence of responsible businesses through partnerships.”

Garments projects media coverage • Ethical Trading Initiative post on COVID-19 Prevention Resource Pack • Ethical Trading Initiative post on ‘Access to information among Bangladesh RMG workers from a gender perspective’

VSCF Mission

Links to articles tackling issues related to BP4GG’s work

“To enable recovery and resilience from the COVID-19 pandemic by forming strategic partnerships with global businesses. Working within supply chains in Africa and Asia, we will test and scale approaches to provide additional health and safety support, increase incomes, safeguard jobs, and ensure continuing access to markets.

We will support vulnerable people within supply chains to recover from COVID-19, and support responsible businesses to build on these experiences to become more sustainable.”

• Ghana News article on Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund (Cadbury Farmer Resilience Fund Supports Thousands Of Women To Improve Their Income In Cocoa Growing Communities) • CARE International article COVID-19 Vaccination document (Photos of Vaccination related activities of VSCF project are featured)

Links to previous events and publications

• CARE International: Feedback sessions with Primark factories, 14 &19 July 2021 • Ethical Trading Initiative webinar on ‘BangladeshPakistan learning sharing’, 15 July 2021 • Ethical Trading Initiative webinar on ‘Sharing learnings and results from COVID-19 prevention in RMG factories in Bangladesh’, 12 August 2021 • Fairtrade Foundation- Learnings from building Resilience in Flower Supply Chains - VSCF Funded Project, 26 May 2021 • GoodWeave International- Building resilience of informal RMG workers in Bangladesh: Learnings from GoodWeave’s deep supply chain due diligence pilot in Bangladesh, 28 July 2021