ETI event report

Final report of ETI multi-stakeholder seminar on Colombia flower industry

Bogotá, 18 April 2007

[español]

Background

ETI retailers and suppliers buy increasing volumes of flowers in Colombia. Since early 2003, relevant ETI members had been holding dialogue on the subject of the Colombian flower industry in the tripartite member group called the ETI Flower Forum. A delegation of Colombian trade unionists visited the UK in early 2006. While here, they met with ETI Flower Forum trade union and company members and suggested that ETI organise a multi-stakeholder seminar in Bogotá.

Aims of the seminar

This suggestion fitted perfectly with the aims of ETI’s ongoing capacity-building programme. One of ETI’s capacity-building objectives is to support suppliers to implement codes of conduct and help trade unions and NGOs play the role they wish to in these processes. As a result, in March 2006 ETI began work to organise a multi-stakeholder seminar in Bogotá with the following aims:

• Obtain greater commitment from commercial Colombian floriculture stakeholders to improving labour rights
• Communicate to Colombian stakeholders the importance of labour rights to UK business
• Create more space for trade unions and NGOs to work with producers, other stakeholders and together
• Share ETI lessons from South Africa and Kenya
• Generate greater understanding of good practice on labour rights implementation through codes of conduct.

Download full report

Report of ETI multi-stakeholder seminar on Colombia flower industry (English) [PDF, 235kb]

See also

Informe Final del seminario de la ETI con las partes interesadas del sector colombiano de floricultura (this page in Spanish)

ETI Activities: Building capacity: Providing training, seminars, briefings and publications: Multi-stakeholder Seminar re implementing labour rights in the Colombian flower industry