Secretariat Update – February 2020

Assurance is defined as demonstrable evidence that specified requirements relating to a product, process, system, person or body are fulfilled. In other words, thinking about Assurance is to ponder the question: how do we protect the credibility of our claim?

The Executive Committee (EC) has been working on an Assurance model concept since late 2019. Following the request for proposal put up in August 2019, an external consultant was engaged to conduct a review of the options for various Assurance Models that would support the desired outcomes of the Platform. In early 2020, the report from the consultant, which discussed existing approaches to Assurance and included recommendations for GPSNR’s approach to Assurance, was submitted to the EC. 

The EC considered the input from the report and expanded upon its findings by conducting a thorough benchmarking of existing Assurance model approaches. Following this exercise, the EC identified and defined several key characteristics that merit inclusion in GPSNR’s Assurance model concept.

In the process of developing these key characteristics, the EC also took into account the purpose, value and benefits of an Assurance model. 

A robust Assurance model would provide a credible and effective system to manage risks by supporting the achievement of sustainability impacts, focusing on accurate assessments of compliance, ensuring the effectiveness of its assurance strategies through good information management systems, and finding additional ways to create value for stakeholders.

A webinar will be held on Friday, 26 June 2020 to introduce GPSNR members to a proposed Assurance model concept.

A tabled summary of the process and timelines around the development of the Assurance model concept up until now is included below:

Although it had been more than a month since the GPSNR smallholder members had met at the international level, they took their places in the online meeting with a sense of familiarity that was heartening to see. 

We had come a long way since the first international call in late August. Since then, the second and third international calls had taken place, focusing on preparing the smallholders for the General Assembly. In the weeks after the General Assembly, the Country Champions helped to organise national-level calls for the smallholders to recap the results of the resolutions and Executive Committee (EC) elections, and to discuss topics of interest to be brought up during the fourth and final international call as part of the series.

The fourth international call was held in the evening of 22 October, and attended by smallholder members from all seven countries. The call began with an update from the three smallholder EC representatives on the EC calls that they had attended thus far. Overall, the representatives had positive takeaways from the EC meetings, despite some language barriers remaining. 

Next, the Co-Chairs of GPSNR’s various Working Groups joined the call in order to introduce each of their Working Groups and briefly explain key focuses and projects. This generated some questions around the policy equivalent for smallholder members, as well as GPSNR’s approach towards traceability for smallholder producers. Several smallholder members also expressed interest in participating in these Working Groups. The Secretariat will get in touch with all smallholders members to facilitate their inclusion in the platform’s Working Groups.

The final half hour of the call was dedicated to a discussion on smallholder community dynamics and how to manage the exchange of information within the category while understanding the geographical and linguistic differences amongst the clusters of smallholder members. 

This concludes the series of preparatory calls designed by the Smallholder Representation Working Group to prepare smallholders for their first GPSNR General Assembly and outcomes. But as the saying goes: when one door closes, another opens. And in this case, the door has opened for the newest membership category to define the parameters and mechanisms of their involvement within the platform, with the support of the Secretariat and fellow GPSNR members.