Secretariat Update – November 2019

Of the 22 applicants, one is from Brazil, four from Côte d’Ivoire, two from Ghana, five are from Indonesia, four from Thailand and six are from Vietnam.

The 2nd General Assembly on 31 March 2020 will see the proposal of a new membership category, ‘Smallholder Producers’. Should the voting on this resolution pass, smallholders will officially find their voice in global efforts to ensure a socially, economically and environmentally sound natural rubber supply chain.

Thanks to sustained funding from Partnerships for Forests (P4F), we will be able to invite the geographically diverse group of smallholders to Singapore to attend their first General Assembly, with the view to onboard them and to have smallholder producers represented in the Executive Committee via the voting of nominated individuals.

As it is important for the smallholders to understand what is required of them at the General Assembly and as an Executive Committee member, the Working Group will be scheduling several sessions, both remote and on-site, to thoroughly brief the smallholders on GPSNR’s Statutes and Code of Conduct. The smallholders will also have the opportunity to get acquainted with one another in the two days prior to the General Assembly.

In preparation for this, the appointed Country Champions of the Working Group will be assisting the smallholders in travel logistics and other administrative matters. The Working Group is also looking into engaging professional translation services at the General Assembly to emphasize impartiality.

It’s been a busy month, to say the least! If you haven’t had the chance to take stock of everything that has happened, here is the update: 

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

The group has finalised the Theory of change, which is currently in the process of being designed for public communications. They have also published the Environmental Risk Study, which can be found here. 

Currently, the group is working on developing the RFP for the Economic Risk Study. 

Smallholder Representation Working Group

After three successful smallholder onboarding workshops for smallholders from Indonesia, India and Cambodia since July 2021, the working group completed three more onboarding workshops for Thailand, Ivory Coast and Sri Lanka. 

More than 80 smallholders from all three countries participated, and the working group is now working on inducting those who apply for membership into the GPSNR ecosystem. The group is also busy with the fourth smallholder international call of 2021 on 25th November to prepare smallholders for GA 2021, as well as to seek smallholders’ views on plans for 2022. 

Policy Toolbox Working Group

The group has finalised the reporting requirements which have been put up for vote to all ordinary members before the General Assembly on 14th December. Take a look at the resolution here.

Capacity Building Working Group

This month, the group worked on presenting GPSNR’s position on rubber agroforestry at COP 26 via the agroforestry Task Force and completed the first review of the GPSNR Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs).The GAP Task Force is now working on finalising the GAPs, including preparations for pre-GA webinar on 2 December 2021, while a separate Task Force has started work  on commencing developments on the GPSNR Knowledge Sharing Platform. The work on the strategy review and implementation plans for Indonesia and Ivory Coast remain in progress. 

Traceability and Transparency Working Group

This working group has finalised the traceability benchmark internally, and will be holding a introducing the document  during the pre-GA webinar on 30th December 2021. The document will go out for broader consultation among the membership soon. The WG will also  provide a summary of possible tools to the EC based on traceability studies conducted last year. 

Shared Responsibility Working Group

The group has discussed and explored solutions to identified root causes for each focus area of shared responsibility. It is also continuing to draft activities and a framework for Shared Responsibility for integration into other processes such as the Implementation Guidance, which will include consultations with GPSNR members and WGs to ensure alignment on Shared Responsibility for the platform.