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Session Title: Rights and Poverty Assessments: Using New Impact Assessment Tools for Community-Company Engagement and Accountability
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Panel Session 931 to be held in Oceanside on Saturday, Nov 5, 12:35 PM to 2:05 PM
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Sponsored by the Business and Industry TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Gabrielle Watson, Oxfam America, gwatson@oxfamamerica.org
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| Abstract:
We present two experiences using new approaches to assess the impacts of private sector actors on local communities in order to foster greater understanding and an improved basis for engagement and improved development outcomes. The first, Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs), have emerged in recent years as a new tool for corporate accountability. Oxfam America has used a community-based methodology, developed by Rights & Democracy of Canada, to put knowledge and power in the hands of communities and the organizations working with them. The second, Oxfam's Poverty Footprint methodology, builds on concepts like 'food miles' and 'environmental footprints', to assess how businesses impact communities touched by their value chains. Panelists present Oxfam's interest in pursuing these assessment methodologies and the experiences of organizations in applying them in actual cases.
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Piloting Community-based Human Rights Impact Assessments at Oxfam America
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| Maria Ezpeleta, Oxfam America, mezpeleta@oxfamamerica.org
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Oxfam America supported two partner organizations to adapt a community-based HRIA methodology developed by Rights and Democracy (R&D) of Canada. Two regional teams opted into the pilot initiative to test the HRIA methodology - one involving migrant tobacco pickers in the US, and one involving indigenous communities affected by gas exploration in Bolivia. Oxfam and R&D staff supported local partner organizations to use and adapt the assessment methodology, providing remote support, periodic field visits, and one face-to-face convening of all the project teams. Surveys also assessed learning, usability and gathered feedback on the process. In the final stages of the pilot, a stock-taking exercise helped Oxfam leadership assess what level of investment to put into additional learning and dissemination of the methodology to other Oxfam programs and regions. The panelist describes the purposeful evaluative and learning processes accompanying the pilot program and the lessons derived from them.
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Communities Using Human Rights Impact Assessments to Shift Power
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| Sarah Zipkin, Oxfam America, szipkin@oxfamamerica.org
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The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) adapted Getting it Right, the Human Rights Impact Assessment methodology developed by Rights & Democracy, to document working conditions of migrant and undocumented tobacco pickers for RJ Reynolds and other tobacco suppliers in North Carolina. Findings revealed substandard housing, long hours of grueling work, daily threats of pesticide poisoning, heatstroke and repetitive stress injuries. The tool helped FLOC generate a report, and together with Oxfam, FLOC has publicized the findings with shareholders, local, state and federal policy-makers. Sarah Zipkin, Oxfam's Regional Advisor for Private Sector Engagement, worked with FLOC throughout the pilot, helping develop survey methodology, sampling frames and interview protocols. She presents how FLOC staff adapted Getting it Right across language, cultural, and legal contexts, and shares how they are using the assessment as part of ongoing campaign efforts to improve working conditions of tobacco pickers.
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Poverty Footprint Studies: Using Impact Studies to Increase Accountability and Improve Development Outcomes
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| Chris Jochnick, Oxfam America, cjochnick@oxfamamerica.org
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Oxfam developed a poverty footprint methodology that assesses impacts of company activities on livelihoods, health and well-being, diversity and gender, empowerment, and security. Oxfam collaborated with a major food & beverage company to test the methodology in communities in Zambia and El Salvador. The purpose of the studies was for NGOs, companies and stakeholders to understand impacts on people throughout the value chains. Corporate disclosure already exists around governance, financials, environmental and labor practices. Oxfam aims to extend transparency and accountability to poverty impacts, to create a platform for community engagement and opportunities to improve development outcomes for both businesses and communities. The study identified opportunities for creating improvements around labor, women's empowerment, water quality and scarcity, and marketing. For Oxfam, the purpose was to surface impacts and spur engagement. The panelist presents how poverty footprints succeeded in achieving this, the challenges, and lessons being applied going forward.
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