The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Vision Zero Fund (VZF) and the Global Coffee Platform (GCP) have established a collaborative partnership to promote improvements in occupational safety and health (OSH) in the global coffee value chain, helping to reduce the risks faced daily by millions of coffee workers.
Through this partnership, ILO VZF and GCP will work together to increase awareness of the risks and practical solutions related to OSH and encourage global and national stakeholders to promote, practice and ensure safe and healthy working conditions.
“The signing of this partnership is very timely as the right to a safe and healthy working environment was recognized as a fundamental principle and right at work by the ILO last year,” says ILO VZF’s Global Programme Manager, Ockert Dupper.
“We are looking forward to sharing the research, tools and lessons learned that the Fund has amassed from its past five years of work on OSH in coffee supply chains. To do this, we are implementing a global communications campaign with the support of our partners.”
ILO VZF and GCP play a complementary role in promoting sustainable, responsible, and inclusive workplace practices in the coffee sector. On this year’s International Coffee Day, the ILO VZF launched the #CoffeePeople campaign and a social media challenge around the theme ‘promoting the right to a safe and healthy working environment in the coffee supply chain’. The ongoing campaign will seek the direct involvement of producing and consuming countries, international organisations active in the coffee sector, coffee companies, and celebrities.
“This partnership will help to advance the GCP 2030 Goal of transformational change on the prosperity of more than one million farmers through sustainable coffee and will contribute to GCP’s strategic work through its network of coffee sustainability platforms in producing countries,” says Gelkha Buitrago, GCP’s Director of Programs and Corporate Partnerships.
By developing this partnership, GCP and ILO VZF are building on a previous successful collaboration to strengthen OSH in Vietnam’s coffee sector. The work has contributed to one of the main strategies of the GCP Country Plan for Farmer Prosperity in Vietnam – to accelerate the social sustainability of coffee production.
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