GPSNR Working Groups Update: January 2021

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Strategy and Objectives Working Group

In our December update, we reported that the Working Group would be conducting interviews with the shortlisted candidates who had responded to the Request for Proposal for a study on environmental impacts, and risks, in the natural rubber value chain. The Working Group has since completed their interviews and will soon be making a decision on who to award the contract to.

The refinement of GPSNR’s Theory of Change is also underway, with a planning call having taken place on Monday this week. The call involved nominated representatives  from across all GPSNR’s Working Groups, working to chart the plan for a collaborative effort to refine the Platform’s Theory of Change.

In other news, several Thai smallholders have been onboarded into the Working Group and, after an introductory call with the Co-Chairs,  are now participating in the Working Group calls.

As the Equity Sub-Group prepares to present the living income studies to GPSNR members, more details will be conveyed to members nearer the date.

‘Policy Toolbox’ Working Group

Following the approval of the GPSNR Policy Framework, the Policy Toolbox Working Group will develop Implementation Guidance and future Reporting Requirements as they pertain to the specific policy components in the framework.  

In order to achieve this, a Request for Proposal (RFP) has been posted for a fixed term consultancy to facilitate the development of the Implementation Guidance and Reporting Requirements for each of the three stakeholder categories: natural rubber producers/processors and traders, tire makers and other natural rubber product manufacturers, and auto makers and other end users.  GPSNR members are invited to circulate the RFP to any relevant contacts who might be interested in submitting proposals for this work. The deadline for submission is 5 February 2021.

The Implementation Guidance and Reporting Requirements will vary depending on where a member company sits within the natural rubber supply chain. As such, GPSNR will invite the creation of category focus groups to enable broader participation of members from the three stakeholder categories (although focus groups can also include members from other stakeholder categories). The details on recruitment for these focus groups will be announced sometime next month.

Apart from facilitating the development of category-specific Implementation Guidance by reviewing guidance and requirements from other initiatives, the consultant will also facilitate discussion sessions with the focus groups to finalize the implementation guidance for each stakeholder category.

‘Capacity Building’ Working Group

In 2020, the Working Group proposed national capacity building strategies for four countries as a starting point. Following the Executive Committee’s endorsement of the strategies, the Working Group is embarking on the next step of putting these plans into action on-the-ground. The Working Group is looking for interested members to form National Sub-Groups mandated to oversee, guide and implement the strategies. The Working Group will conduct a webinar in mid February to share the strategies with GPSNR members. Check out our article, ‘From Strategy to Implementation: Next Steps for Capacity Building’ for more on this story.

‘Traceability and Transparency’ Working Group

The two studies around traceability and transparency tools and technology commissioned in 2020 by the Working Group are ready to be shared with GPSNR members. Read our article, ‘Seeing Through to a Solution: Traceability and Transparency Tools and Technology Studies’ for more on this topic.

Smallholder Representation Working Group

The Working Group’s revised Terms of Reference (ToR) was approved by the Executive Committee during its monthly call in January. Under the revised ToR, the Smallholder Representation Working Group has identified two main objectives for its work moving forward: the first, to support the creation of an active smallholder community within GPSNR and the second, to extend the on-boarding of smallholders from rubber producing countries. The Working Group will be planning its activities for the year head, ensuring that they support and contribute towards achieving these new objectives. 

As a start, the Working Group will be looking to onboard smallholder members into the group, as well as facilitate the organization of the next Smallholder Category Call.

More To Explore
Members

Introducing GPSNR Topic Talks! Webinar Series (Members Version)

GPSNR Topic Talks! is a new webinar series organised by the GPSNR Secretariat and presented by GPSNR members. The webinars will take place over three Tuesdays in October and November, and will cover three main themes around sustainability and the global natural rubber supply chain.

The first Topic Talk, a presentation by Philippe Thaler from CIRAD on the implications of EU legislation on imported deforestation, took place just yesterday night. The webinar was well attended by GPSNR members from various membership categories. In his presentation, Philippe covered the current status of EU commitments towards avoiding imported deforestation and how France has started implementing its policy. He also elaborated on the demand from French institutions to CIRAD to assess compliance with this policy in natural rubber. He concluded with some examples of how GPSNR can demonstrate the platform’s positive impacts in this context. The Q&A session afterward allowed for a deeper dive into the topic, as well as opening up some interesting questions on the use of alternative tools apart from compliance and assurance that can also help stakeholders progress towards their zero deforestation goals.

The next Topic Talks will focus on the themes of smallholder solutions as well as assurance and smallholders. More details on the upcoming webinars are provided in the subsequent section of this article.

Smallholder Solutions: From Income Diversification to Landscape Approaches

3 November 2020 | 7PM (GMT+8)   

Click here to register

This webinar consists of two presentations:

“A landscape-level approach to inclusion and capacity building for rubber smallholders”

Presented by: Kirana Megatara, Proforest & SNV

This presentation is based on experience from the Kelola-Sendang project in South Sumatra, where SNV, with Proforest support, worked with rubber smallholders in the context of a large jurisdictional initiative. New links were built between these groups and a crumb rubber factory buyer in the Kirana group, helping to streamline the supply chain and open channels of communication on sustainability issues.

“Exploring Smallholder Solutions in the Rubber Sector – The Processing and Sale of Rubberwood to Support Smallholder Financing in Indonesia”

Presented by: WWF with Financial Access

HeveaConnect, Target Corporation, and World Wildlife Fund are engaged in finding solutions to enhance the production and trade of sustainable natural rubber. The three organizations came together in 2019 around the shared interest in understanding how the processing and sale of rubberwood might incentivize the adoption of sustainable practices by natural rubber smallholders and enhance their livelihoods. We enlisted the services of Financial Access to analyze the potential of rubberwood to serve as a mechanism to support smallholder financing in Indonesia. Although the scope of the analysis was limited to two provinces in Sumatra, the findings of this study could be used there and elsewhere in Indonesia to inform the development of sustainable natural rubber initiatives that include the processing and trade of rubberwood as one of several strategies to support equity in natural rubber supply chains.

Assurance and Smallholders: Learning from Existing Schemes

24 November | 7PM (GMT+8)

Click here to register

This webinar consists of two presentations:

“FSC Smallholder Certification Solutions”

Presented by: FSC

The presentation will cover FSC’s solutions for smallholders to become certified. First, an overview of the evaluation of certification solutions for smallholders will be given. FSC’s existing solutions will be covered, with a focus on the benefits for FSC Group Certification. Next, solutions in the pipeline will be covered, addressing the impact of pilot projects and highlighting success stories.

“PEFC, a system of choice for rubber smallholders”

Presented by: PEFC

Through a comprehensive explanation of PEFC, PEFC will elaborate further on their unique bottom-up approach in standard-setting and certification. Why and how this approach makes PEFC a system of choice for rubber smallholders and all companies involved in the natural rubber supply chain. They will also showcase current collaborative projects with their national members and companies to support smallholder producers. PEFC will explain how it will benefit GPSNR members and the work that GPSNR is engaged in.

GPSNR Staff October 28, 2020
News

From Strategy to Implementation: Next Steps for Capacity Building

One of the key strategies identified by GPSNR to achieve our vision of a fair, equitable and environmentally sound natural rubber value chain is to ensure that there is capacity amongst smallholders and industrial plantations to adopt best practices in natural rubber production.  

In 2020, the Capacity Building Working Group, through various stakeholder interviews and Working Group discussions, proposed a set of country-specific capacity building activities for four countries as a start: Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. In developing these strategies, the Working Group sought to first identify threats to the sustainable production of natural rubber within the different local contexts, as well as the underlying causes for these threats. From this initial research, the working group developed proposed capacity building actions, along with main objectives and rationales for each chosen action. The approach adopted by the Working Group in designing these actions is to allow for immediate engagement and implementation on the ground. 

Following the Executive Committee’s endorsement of the Working Group’s capacity building proposals, the Working Group will be conducting a sharing session for all GPSNR members, during which more details about each national capacity building strategy will be presented.

Recruiting Members to Capacity Building National Sub-Groups

Now that the capacity building strategies are in place, the Working Group is inviting interested GPSNR members to join the soon-to-be-created National Sub-Groups that will be mandated to oversee, guide and implement the national capacity building strategies and to promote GPSNR policies and initiatives.  

The development of the National Sub-Groups recognizes existing local capacity building initiatives in the rubber sector and their independence of GPSNR and aims to cooperate with local efforts and stakeholders to achieve mutually agreed outcomes.

GPSNR Staff January 27, 2021

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