Three funders – the Ford Foundation, the Sage Fund, and Open Society Foundations – recently wrote about their strategic priorities when funding interventions in the world of work. The Ford Foundation was the most detailed, identifying their five areas for strategic interventions as follows:
- Changing company practices and behaviour;
- Influencing investment;
- Establishing international standards and norms;
- Strengthening and enforcing labour laws;
- Organising workers to build voice and power.
My assessment is that the conventional human rights framework – the third strategy on this list – requires reinforcing. Despite all of the talk of new and different approaches, there remains considerable value to actually holding governments accountable for existing standards which they have agreed to uphold, yet frequently fail to do so. The final strategy – organising workers – also deserves special emphasis and needs further funding to amplify and transmit workers’ voices.
Despite all of the talk of new and different approaches, there remains considerable value to actually holding governments accountable for existing standards.
We still need more accountability!
Reinforcing the human rights framework means holding governments to account for:
