GPSNR Working Groups Update: March 2022

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All GPSNR working groups have a large chunk of work ahead of them. Here are all their updates:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

The group has made good progress by establishing the new risk task force that will evaluate the exact scope of GPSNR’s risk based approach. It has also got its new Terms of Reference approved by the Executive Committee, and is now working on contracting a consultant for the Economic Risk Study and conducting a gap analysis of GPSNR’s current activities based on the platform’s Theory of Change.

Smallholder Representation Working Group

Having published the RFP to develop the GPSNR Smallholders Policy Framework equivalent, the group is focussing on the first Smallholders International Call of the year in March 2022, workshops in Liberia and Malaysia, and on developing country-specific smallholder engagement activities with smallholders and Country Champions.

Policy Toolbox Working Group

This group is continuing discussions among its three new subgroups: Transparent reporting roadmap, Implementation Guidance and RR Guidance & Tools. In the coming months, they will finalize guidance for the reporting requirements and share it with companies

At the same time, they are working with the smallholder representation working group on the Smallholder Policy Framework equivalent.

Capacity Building Working Group

After publishing the GAPs as living documents in English and Bahasa and selecting SNV-Proforest and Koltiva as consultants to work on the GAPs coaching in Indonesia, the working group continues to develop capacity building plans for Indonesia, Thailand and Ivory Coast.

They are also seeking your inputs for GPSNR’s knowledge sharing platform, which you can provide here.

Traceability and Transparency Working Group

Having finalized the traceability and transparency primer, the WG will wind down its operations.

Shared Responsibility Working Group

The Shared Responsibility has completed a review of the Shared Responsibility Framework, incorporating feedback from the Executive Committee. The Working Group will present an updated proposal to the EC as the next step, with a view to prepare a resolution at the 2022 General Assembly.

March 29, 2022

More To Explore

Members

Embracing our Shared Responsibility: GPSNR’s newest Working Group (Members Version)

Before the second General Assembly on 23 September 2020, the GPSNR Executive Committee had approved the creation of a Shared Responsibility Working Group that would be tasked to define the principles of shared responsibility for GPSNR.

The term ‘shared responsibility’ is relatively new to the sustainability scene, and as such, there is currently no commonly accepted definition for it. In general, shared responsibility is a value-driven concept which recognizes that supply chains are structurally imbalanced in terms of value and benefit, risk, burden of compliance, climate change impacts, power of negotiation, and access to information and resources. A shared responsibility approach strives for value, benefits, risks and improvement investments to be equitably distributed across all actors within the supply chain.

In order to establish the foundational work that would enable the creation of the Shared Responsibility Working Group, the Executive Committee formed a Task Force comprising several of its members. Over a series of weekly calls, the Task Force has developed a Terms of Reference (ToR) and a set of Guiding Principles to inform the work of the new Shared Responsibility Working Group.

It is envisioned that the Shared Responsibility Working Group will draw from the Guiding Principles for Shared Responsibility (currently being developed by the Executive Committee’s Shared Responsibility Task Force), as well as the GPSNR Equity Definition and the studies launched by the Equity Working Group, to develop an implementation framework for the platform with respect to shared responsibility.

GPSNR is now looking for members interested in joining the Shared Responsibility Working Group, to register with the Secretariat. If you are interested to join the SR WG, please email Aidan (aidan@gpsnr.org) to indicate your interest. The deadline for expressing interest is Wednesday 24th February, after which the WG will nominate co-chairs and kickoff as soon as possible.

The Shared Responsibility Working Group Terms of Reference can be found here.

Shared-Responsibility-WG-TOR Download

GPSNR Staff February 16, 2021

News

Smallholders Representation Working Group Update – November 2019

With the input from the workshop in Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil (and soon Cote d’Ivoire and Vietnam), the smallholders representation working group is finalizing the definition of ‘smallholders’ which will be needed to open up a new category of membership. Recognizing the experience and effort that IRSG/SNRi had already invested in this work, Smallholders Representation Working Group invited IRSG to discuss the definition of ‘smallholders’.

While many countries have their own definition of ‘smallholders’ based on the size of their land, the Smallholders representation Working Group agreed other characteristics of smallholders (such as income provenance, level of dependency on family labour, economic constraints, etc) should also be considered.

As the definition of ‘smallholders’ are affiliated to the work scope Strategy 2 – Capacity Building Working Group, the Smallholders Representation Working Group members are working closely with Strategy 2 – Capacity Building Working Group members to ensure that there is alignment in definition between smallholders in the natural rubber supply chain and smallholders that will become GPSNR member.

In the meantime, a successful third workshop in Brazil concluded this week, with a series of learnings for GPSNR on the organisation of farmers in the region, and their expectations from the future collaboration with the Platform. The workshop also achieved good progress on the identification of potential candidates for membership in GPSNR, both by single farmers and producers associations.

GPSNR Staff November 21, 2019