GPSNR Working Groups Update: April 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the entire natural rubber supply chain. It has triggered car and tire manufacturing companies to operate with a reduced workforce, or temporarily halt production plants altogether. Strict lockdown measures have caused a drastic fall in the sales of consumer tires across Europe. Global demand for natural rubber has dropped, the effects of which will be felt by the 6 million natural rubber smallholders in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Many smallholders live in poverty, depending on daily wages to feed their families. Their situations will only be exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. Already, the Association of Producers and Processing Plants of the State of São Paulo (APABOR) has estimated that for Brazil alone, the subsistence of around 100,000 natural rubber farmers and their direct relatives is at risk.

While COVID-19 exposes the vulnerabilities of smallholders, it also reveals the potential they have to be agents of change and drivers of transformation. The pandemic has reminded us of the connections between human health, resilient landscapes, economic stability and livelihoods; the post COVID-19 world is more likely to devote greater attention to tackling environmental, social and economic impacts of its many supply chains. Smallholders, who produce 85% of the world’s natural rubber supply, are thus key to advancing GPSNR’s vision of a fair, equitable and environmentally sound rubber value chain.

One of GPSNR’s major outcomes for this year has been welcoming our new smallholder members. As of today, a total of 27 smallholder members (with additions from Myanmar) have joined GPSNR. The inclusion of smallholders into the fabric of the Platform provides them the opportunity to drive the agenda for sustainable natural rubber and, in the long-term, realize the social, economic and environmental benefits that sustainability brings. 

We encourage GPSNR members to communicate this outcome through the communication channels of their respective organizations. To this end, we launched a quarterly Members’ Communication Toolkit which outlines the suggested key message and provides ready-to-use content for communicating the message. GPSNR Members may access the Members’ Communication Toolkit for Q2 2020 in the GPSNR Forum.  

More is being done to fully include these smallholders in the Working Groups and Executive Committee. The Smallholders Representation Working Group continues with its efforts in designing a programme for onboarding smallholders prior to the General Assembly. In the meantime, some of our new smallholder members are already actively involved in Working Group discussions. Additionally, having recognized the urgency to address the impacts of COVID-19 on smallholders, the Equity sub-Working Group is developing a position paper on the issue.

Using the Theory of Change model, the Working Group identified root causes that prevent the natural rubber supply chain from achieving the desired state. Once these root causes were agreed upon, effective strategies could be designed to mitigate them.

Considering that the natural rubber industry and the world around it is not static but changes with time, the Working Group has planned for the Theory of Change to be a living document that GPSNR members will continually update and maintain. This will ensure its relevance and role in realizing the vision of GPSNR.

In addition to the above, the Working Group is drafting the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Equity sub-Working Group. The sub-Working Group’s focus will be on how we can ensure equity along the supply chain.

‘Policy Toolbox’ Working Group

Working Group members’ comments on the first draft of the top line policy components were consolidated and incorporated into an updated draft. For ease of understanding, it was agreed that the policy components and implementation components would be displayed in separate tables. This would allow members to more easily distinguish the policy commitments they should adopt, and the corresponding actions they should implement.

The Working Group aims to have the top line policy components finalized by the end of January for the Executive Committee’s approval.  

‘Capacity Building’ Working Group

The Working Group has designed the questionnaire on which it will base the interviews of stakeholders conducting capacity building activities in rubber-producing countries. Volunteers from the Working Group as well as the GPSNR Secretariat will contact the previously identified stakeholders and seek their input on past and existing capacity building initiatives, evaluating the success of the activities and exploring the role that GPSNR can play in ensuring that the initiatives fulfill their objectives.

‘Traceability and Transparency’ Working Group

Using the Theory of Change document as an anchor to their discussions, the Working Group was able to analyze how the lack of traceability and transparency in the natural rubber supply chain would constitute a threat to sustainability, and how to tackle the associating challenges. Next, the Working Group will start on the design of pilot studies for tools currently employed to assess supply chain risks and/or achieve supply chain traceability or transparency.