GPSNR Working Groups Update: January 2021 (Members Version)

Here are all their updates from the last month:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

The working group has made some significant progress this month on its work around risk simply by bringing so many members together in a room! Apart from this, their priorities for the next phase have been finalised and include the assurance model, a strategy for government engagement and a risk assessment framework.

Smallholder Representation Working Group

After successful workshops in Ghana and Liberia earlier this month, the group is now focusing on reviewing the structure of smallholder membership on the Platform, and developing plans for the pilot agroforestry workshops for smallholders.

Policy Toolbox Working Group

This group is inviting members feedback on the transparent reporting roadmap, which you can take a look at here. Once feedback is incorporated into the roadmap, it will be presented to the Executive Committee as a resolution ahead of the 2022 General Assembly. They are also finalising the reporting guidance for all member categories, and developed implementation guidance for manufacturers and end user categories. Currently, their long yet important to-do also includes finalising the compliance panel operational guidance.

Capacity Building Working Group

The group has kicked off GPSNRs first capacity building project on the ground in Indonesia with Koltiva (funded by Pirelli and Goodyear), for which you can expect updates soon! As a continuation of their work from last month, they remain busy with the development of the Knowledge Sharing Platform and technical analysis of other IT platforms, and will release updates on more capacity building projects in June!

Shared Responsibility Working Group

The Shared Responsibility working group has received EC approval for the resolution on the Shared Responsibility framework! They will soon be submitting the finalised resolution, and operationalising next steps based on the framework.

The final version of Desired State V1-0 and Theory of Change will be submitted to the Executive Committee in view of approval at the General Assembly on 31st March 2020.  The Strategy & Objectives Working group is also preparing a concept of Equity working sub-group. GPSNR calls for members who wish to support in preparing the concept note for the equity sub-group, to please state your interest to GPSNR secretariat. 

Strategy 1 ‘Policy Toolbox’ Working Group drafters proposed the first draft of the policy elements and KPIs to the working members, which have now been mapped out against GPSNR 12 principles and desired state.  In order to collect the comments in a written form, members are asked to provide their comments online by January 3rd 2020. After the working group members agree on the final version of policy components, it will be submitted to the Executive Committee for comments and approval.

Strategy 2 ‘Capacity Building’ Working Group has completed a validation of their strategy against the Theory of Change.  The Working Group realizes that the situation in each country varies, so the capacity building strategy needs to be customized in its approach.  A list of stakeholders conducting capacity building activities in rubber producing countries has been finalised. The next step will be to collect inputs from the identified stakeholders in order to design GPSNR capacity building strategies.  In order to have a standardized information, the interviews will be conducted by GPSNR members in January 2020, and the result of the interview will be consolidated by GPSNR secretariat.

Strategy 3 ‘Traceability and Transparency’ Working Group – Some of the tools that the members are using for natural rubber traceability and transparency were presented during the first calls.  The next step is to start looking at Theory of Change, what are the underlying cause of lack of transparency and traceability, and how increasing transparency will contribute to the desired state.

GPSNR members can see the discussion and the minutes of each working grouop on GPSNR discussion forum. Please contact nigel@gpsnr.org for your log-in credentials.