ETI Forum Series

Voices from the South

ETI NGO members’ discussion forum on working with Southern partners

Introduction

In May 2003 thirty NGO activists, over half from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America, the rest from Europe and Canada came to London to discuss their views on codes of conduct and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI). They spent a long day debating about how ETI could contribute to the wider movement on codes of conduct and how as an initiative it could move on. Some participants had direct experience of working within an ETI pilot project and all had expertise on codes of conduct.

The consultation was organized by the Ethical Trading Initiative NGO caucus (the group of UK NGO ETI members) and was a response to the ETI need for a Southern review of its work. NGOs from the South and Eastern Europe are key stakeholders in the area of codes of conduct and monitoring, as through their experience, and often direct contact with the intended beneficiaries of codes (female and male workers), they have access to vital knowledge to inform these debates.

Southern participants came from eighteen different organizations, five from Africa, eight from Asia, four from Latin America, and one from Eastern Europe. A full list of participants can be found at the end of this document. Before the consultation took place all actively participated in the two day Biannual ETI Conference attended by around three hundred delegates. A pre conference briefing session for Southern and Eastern European NGO delegates was well received and together with the conference provided consultation participants with an overview of ETI, how it functions and its membership.

ETI was generally viewed as a positive initiative whose principle contribution to work on codes has been its “learning by doing” approach. The key recommendation of how ETI could improve its work was to share it’s learning more effectively and widely.

Participants began by reviewing their experience both of ETI and of codes of conduct. They identified key issues from their perspective in relation to codes of conduct and put forward recommendations for the future work of ETI, for the NGOs, trade unions,and retailers who are ETI members, for other multistakeholder initiatives, retailers, brands and governments. This report summarises the main areas of discussion, and recommendations.

Three cross cutting themes were also identified and it was proposed that they should be considered within every issue. Unfortunately, in practice this did not always happen which is an indication that perhaps greater understanding of these themes is needed. The cross cutting themes were gender, informal employment and the change agenda.

Gender:

Women workers have different concerns to male workers and they are often not addressed by codes of conduct.

Informal employment:

There is a general concern that codes are much less effective in addressing problems faced by workers in informal employment and there is reluctance among retailers/brands to take responsibility for working conditions beyond first tier suppliers.

Change agenda:

As ETI companies are now identifying some code violations, one of the challenges is how to direct them towards actions which result in meaningful change to workers’ lives.

The ETI NGO caucus found the consultation extremely helpful and inspiring. It was a genuine dialogue that is hoped can be built upon through the development of lasting links between Southern and Eastern partners, increasing meaningful Southern participation in ETI.

 

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See also:

• ETI Conference Report
• ETI Annual Reports
• ETI Activities: Experimental Projects