devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Anti Child Labour in ASM Gold Mines in Uganda project Up to 1.5 million children are involved in artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) globally, which the International Labour Organization have identified as exposing children to greater risks than any other sector (collapsing mines, carbon monoxide poisoning and mercury use are just some of the risks children may be exposed to). The drivers for the participation of children in mining can be found in a lack of (access to) education and chronic economic poverty.

To effectively tackle child labour in ASM communities, a multi-faceted approach is therefore needed. In this context, our two-year programme seeks to affect change at the community, mine and supply chain levels – establishing an enabling environment for child-free mining sites by creating a range of incentives for behaviour change.

Our work at community level will employ an area based approach to child labour, focusing on involving all stakeholders within the area, including teachers, parents, children, unions, community groups, local authorities and employers, to work together to end all forms of child labour. Only by embedding awareness of the prohibition of child labour and access to education in the whole area the approach will be sustainable.

At the mine and supply chain levels we will seek to support the formalisation and economic prosperity of mining sites as a strategy to addressing the poverty-driven causes of child labour in ASM communities. Our programme will provide incentives for community action to remediate against child labour through conditional access to credit (to invest in improved mining equipment) and international markets (with links to off takers and the creation of an export model for verified small-scale mined gold).

By creating a multi-pronged approach including incentives for behaviour change, our programme will contribute to our vision of economically prosperous and child-free mining communities within the next 5 years.

The project will take place in Busia district, Uganda. There are an estimated 50,000 small-scale miners in Uganda with up to 30% of these (15,000+) being children. Busia sits in extreme East of Uganda on the border with Kenya and has a historic gold mining tradition, including a wide range of small-scale mining sites in varying degrees of formalisation.

Our project will work with Artisanal Small-scale Mining Organisations (ASMOs) in the Busitema and/or Buteba sub-counties of Busia District, which house combined populations of 45,000 people. As the baseline report for Uganda demonstrated, to effectively tackle child labour in mining in the region, actions need to offer alternatives and have impact on the main causes of child labour in artisanal gold mining in the region which is lack of decent work and income for adults, unstable family situations, lack of awareness around child labour and the importance of education and the costs for and lack of sufficient schools and quality education.
Livestock global to local agenda: meaningful civil society engagement for promoting the interests of vulnerable groups In the Southern Africa region, Solidaridad focused on agenda setting and providing examples as inputs for the dialogue on the development of the livestock sector. It led to the establishment of the Southern Africa Regional Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (SARRSB) which constitutes private companies, farmers’ organizations and governmental institutions of seven countries (Eswatini, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe). The SARRSB was registered in Zimbabwe and has been accepted as the regional chapter of the GRSB. We participated in and contributed to the Global Roundtable meetings, and shared practical experiences from the Mazambuka landscapes Project and from our PfC project in Zambia, to shape the agenda of the SARRSB. A discussion on the set-up of national chapters has been started. The SARRSB will continue as an independent organization as of 2021. Our efforts towards transformation of the Southern African livestock sector transformation can be integrated in our Local African Food programme, as part of RECLAIM Sustainability!.
Go Farmer App Development This project falls under Solidaridad's Good Practices and Robust Infrastructure result areas and is rooted in Solidaridad's evolution from certification mechanisms and corporate interests, to beyond certification with a farmer focus. This evolution is the result of learnings from the FSP projects which revealed that farmers cannot be 'certified out of poverty', and which has become a driver of the MASP 2020.  One of the key focuses of this strategy is to achieve speed and scale, which requires improving the economic performance of smallholder farmers. The Go Farmer app is being developed to facilitate this improved economic performance by giving smallholder farmers the tools, advice and guidance needed to evolve their farming into profitable businesses.
Responsible practices in the ASM Peruvian and Colombian gold sectors In Peru and Colombia, we want to integrate and formalize Artisanal and Small-scale Miners (ASM), into the formal gold value chain by working with Large Scale Mines (LSM). In 2020 we have developed new partnerships with 2 large scale and industrial mining companies with 450 artisanal miners operating within their concessions. The Covid-19 crisis limited our ability to work with all mines we had foreseen for 2020. One LSM partner needed to prioritize controlling the Covid-19 infections within its own operations in order to avoid shutdown, and we could re-engage only in December. The start-up activities with a third LSM partner were delayed because of the restrictions and we can start with the first visits only in July. Yet we were able to work with one LSM, integrating 90 artisanal miners from 8 ASM groups into its concession. The benefits of this model are starting to show: material and input costs for small scale miners reduced by 25%, ore transportation time reduced by 30% and the use of mercury reduced with 36.8kgs in 2020. We made a start with the development of the first financial product specifically for ASM in Peru. 

Red Social joined us to develop an initiative to study and alleviate Covid-19 effects among Pallaqueras (women miners): the Pallaqueras’ assistance platform (read more here). Through this platform we raised funds (over US$11,000) and distributed food supplies to 560 families in Arequipa, Puno and Ayacucho (Peru). We offered a remote capacity building program to adjust their work practices, daily social activities and family routines to the Covid-19 scenario. And we set up a call center that provides timely information on how to prevent and handle Covid-19 infections.
In Colombia, the Covid-19 restrictions also delayed the process of building new partnerships, but from September onwards we could finalize new partnerships to provide technical and formalization assistance for 35 artisanal miners, organized in 7 ASM groups.

Together with local and international CSO partners and public authorities we developed safety protocols and booklets for the ASM sector to cope with the Covid-19 crisis (“MAPE sin Covid-19” -ASM without Covid-19- in Peru and Colombia).
Information Technology and Digital Services for improved transparency and accountability Solidaridad envisions a Digital Landscape with an application and tool ecosystem to:

1. Interact with farmers and providing services supporting the intervention strategies and deliverables by the means of tools and (mobile) applications.
2. Collect data in a continuous flow through interactive applications and standardized tools and methodologies.
3. Store, retrieve and exchange data through standardized and open procedures and protocols providing the basis for data analysis.
4. Develop and implement tools and capacity to provide the knowledge to support program improvement, contribute to policy enhancement and reporting requirements. 

The goal is to empower Solidaridad staff across the globe with a powerful, data driven operating system, every day, everywhere, on any device. A globally connected, data driven operating system to globally scale change that matters. 

Our Cloud-Based ERP Management Information System on the Salesforce platform is called Plaza and comprises three arena's: Finance Arena; Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL) Arena; and Collaboration Arena. In 2020, we concluded our implementation and training of our common financial management system called FinancialForce. With the conclusion of the Finance Arena, the focus shifted to adapting the PMEL Arena to the new underlying data model. This proved to be more challenging than expected. The release of the PMEL Arena and training of users are scheduled for Q1 2021. This progress towards one shared financial and project management system is of great value to our network. It will enhance the efficiency and accuracy of data management, improving monitoring and reporting. It will also facilitate better comparisons, analysis and forecasting throughout the network.

In 2020, we improved our reporting process and structure to publish according to the IATI guidelines. Our new PMEL data model and improved Plaza management information system are essential pieces for monitoring, learning and reporting. They lay the foundation for a jump in the quality of sharing our data publicly. With the quality of information assured. The next step will be to increase the agility and automate the publishing process, rescheduled for 2021.
Gender capacity enhancement Solidaridad central America Gender capacity enhancement of programme staff in Central America.
Capacity Enhancement Solidaridad East and Central Africa Capacity enhancement of programme staff and management in Solidaridad East and Central Africa, notably for the innovation themes (impact investment, gender, climate change).
Commodity Communities of Change: Cotton Solidaridad was re-elected for another four-year term to the Council (board) of the Better Cotton Initiative in June 2018. With Solidaridad’s representative (Isabelle Roger) being one of the only two women on the board. The attention of the board was brought on improving gender equality in the board. We also put on the agenda the topic of inclusion of smallholder farmers in Brazil (currently de facto excluded), which is dependent on the agreement between BCI and the national cotton producer association (ABRAPA). We also contributed to the discussion on the revision of the BCI verification procedures towards a process more geared towards continuous improvement than certification.
Commodity Communities of Change: Coffee Soldaridad continued its participation within different multi stakeholder initiatives like the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, the Global Coffee Platform, the SAFE platform and the Sustainability Council Speciality Coffee Association (SCA). We have noticed that all four initiatives are getting weaker, have less funds and capacity to implement their programmes, being forced to focus sometimes only on a couple of countries or drop an issue like gender from the agenda.  Solidaridad is therefore reconsidering its strategy. Within this context we have increased our ability to strategically influence the agenda of the Global Coffee Platform by being elected into the board by our civil society constituency. This enabled us to put the condition of the coffee seasonal workers higher on the agenda, support the creation of an action network and commission a study that explores the links between higher value coffees and labour conditions. Another way to create more emphasis on the working conditions in the sector has been our presence at the International Coffee Organization’s meeting for CEOs  and the Living Income Coffee event organized by Nestlé. At the RE:CO 2019, or Regarding Coffee yearly coffee symposium held by the SCA, we were invited as key-note speaker and presented  the 2018 coffee barometer findings.
Improving policy design in territorial organization and land use in the soy sector in Bolivia as a means to increase sector productivity we have supported ANAPO, FEGASACRUZ (soy and livestock producer organizations), and CSOs FAN and AVINA to advocate for the improvement and enforcement of environmental regulations, and to work together with the government to review, adapt, implement and enforce the environmental legal framework. These CSOs were convened into a MSP, and worked collaboratively with the Authority for the Supervision of Forest and Land (ABT) to improve its processes and strengthen their enforcement capacities. As a result, the ABT improved and automated the approval process of land use rights, making it more accessible, transparent and efficient (reducing the permit approval process from 20 days to 15 minutes). ABT made staff capacity available to do more field monitoring and control. They have also adopted geospatial monitoring systems to get daily updates on changes in the land use, and an early warning system for fires, that facilitates the detection of fire sources in real time. Trading company Cargill received advice to improve its legal compliance checklist as a result of the discussions held in the multi stakeholder platform. This would work as an incentive (from the market side) for farmers' compliance with the environmental regulations. The political instability in the country influenced the high rotation of staff and the absence of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) in the dialogue platform. In 2020 we supported INRA to identify the priority improvements in relation to producers’ land titling and land planning that will be further worked out over the course of 2021.
Impact Investment Learning Agenda Within the Advocacy for Change and the Practice for Change programmes, Solidaridad has developed a broad learning agenda that aims to identify and generate evidence of best practices across all our innovative thematic areas. This project focusses on the theme of Impact Investment. Research and learnings will be disseminated and integrated into the planning of the new MASP 2021-2025.
RTRS Certification Mozambique This is a RTRS project with soy producers in Angonia, promoting an out grower scheme in partnership with private agricultural business firms that are increasing production of soybeans in the Zambézia and Nampula province.
WOTRO IRESO Uganda project Improving Wealth, Nutrition and Resilience through sustainable production of Grafted Tomatoes, with 4,500 beneficiaries in Uganda.
Capacity building for sugar outgrowers in Malawi phase 3 The overall objective of the 24 month action is to contribute to poverty reduction through increased income. The specific objective of the third phase is to improve the livelihoods and wellbeing of 3 429 sugarcane outgrowers as well as their ability to influence the future of the sector.
Enabling policy influencing for improved livelihoods of tea and fruit & vegetables farmers in Uganda In  Uganda, we focus our enabling policy influencing efforts on improving livelihoods of tea and fruit & vegetables farmers, thorugh improving policy frameworks to give strategic guidance and guide private investment in the tea and horticulture sectors. The National Tea Policy has been developed and approved under the mandate of the MAAIF and presented to Parliament for ratification. This Policy promotes, amongst others, improved productivity (quantity and quality) especially by smallholder tea farmers, strengthens the delivery of extension services to both farms and estates, creates opportunities for private sector investment, as well as promotes appropriate technologies for harvest, post-harvest handling and processing. In the fruit and vegetables sector, MSPs led to the creation of new guidelines on common practices in food safety, food handling and compliance with voluntary sustainability standards. The guidelines tackled issues related to modern harvesting technologies, post-harvest handling, processing, packaging and value addition. The tea policy, as well as the fruit and vegetables guidelines incorporate a strong gender mainstreaming focus, and provide a framework for implementers to ensure that programmes and initiatives take into account the challenges and opportunities for women, men, girls and boys.
Healthy Fruits & Vegetables for Africa The national MSPs in Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia that worked towards improved policies for the Fruit & Vegetables sectors, intentionally targeted all the relevant stakeholders to ensure inclusivity and had each its own dynamics. The countries where fruits and vegetables are a national priority had a better level of engagement. The MSP approach has been instrumental in influencing standard development for safe Fruit and Vegetables production and trade. Where standards already existed, as is in South Africa, it improved complex standards and assurance compliances by adding entry-level compliance packages that will make it easier for smallholders to build linkages into supply chains as their capacities improve. In Tanzania, there is a draft standard that still needs to take its passage through Parliament. The additions to the GlobalGAP packages (localgap revisions and the Primary Farm Assurance programme) were direct spin-offs with both GlobalGAP and retailers involved. In Zambia, the awareness created when various stakeholders were brought together has contributed to the development of a Food Safety Act. This policy vehicle still needs work, but it opens up the space to advocate for a national standard. A National Technical Steering Group under the auspices of the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) has been established to take the process forward towards a national standard. Continuity of the programme is made possible by connecting the work in Zambia and Mozambique with the Local Food programme funded by the RECLAIM Sustainability! funding line. In the case of East and Central Africa, to ensure continuation of sector transformation in the existing fruit and vegetables programmes in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, the MSPs could be maintained, strengthened, and the lessons could be incorporated and addressed.
Commodity Communities of Change: Gold Solidaridad is part of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) Standards Committee. With a board fully controlled by the industry, we are concerned about the exclusiveness of the initiative, giving limited space to gold mining companies, ASM mines, and civil society, and little coverage of the global sector. RJC is overall a decent standard on paper, the governing system leaves it open to too much influence of industry members. Plus, its systems for enforcement and impact evaluation of the standard are lacking. Largely as a result of our continued lobby to address these concerns, RJC has commissioned an external study to review and benchmark its governance structure against a variety of sustainability standards. The report is due first half of 2019. Also RJC committed to making a trip in 2019--jointly organized by Solidaridad and RJC--to meet with mines and convince them to join. We also saw the need for change the standard itself, towards more gender inclusiveness and environmental protection, as well as continued recognition that large mines could support and work with artisanal miners on and around their land. Solidaridad also gave written and spoken input into the standards review process, which takes place at RJC every three years. This was a time-intensive process that involved two in-person meetings and bi-monthly calls.This input was taken up by the Standard Committee.
Food For All project in Kenya Food for All Project Kenya is a 5-year project funded by FDOV with the main goal of improving the livelihoods and resilience of 48,500 households, through improving access and availability of good food and livestock products, thereby reducing food and Nutrition insecurity in Eastern region of Kenya
Model for collaborative and cost-effective farmer assistance In Brazil, we work together with companies, farmer cooperatives and associations to implement digital technical assistance tools, to fine tune and strengthen their service provision models, and to (re)train their extension workers. Our digital tools allow farmer associations and cooperatives to reshape their services to fit better the farmers’ needs, and to make their Technical Assistance (TA) more effective. Extension workers have access to custom work plans based on farmer assessments, and so provide tailored support to the farmers. In 2020 we have been working with 19 sugarcane farmer associations and 1 cocoa farmer organization reaching 6,658 farmers. We have also supported 263 citrus producers through digital channels. Together with our partner Raízen, the biggest sugarcane milling group in the world, we reached 26 mills and their 2,152 sugarcane suppliers. Through these interventions we brought 478,377 hectares under sustainable management practices. From 2021 onwards, Raízen will continue implementing the Technical Assistance model and Solidaridad tools and data-advisory support at own cost. 
The work with the sugarcane farmer associations in 2020, was partly hampered by Covid-19 restrictions, reducing the outreach by 10%. However, the collected data through different digital tools gave the associations a much better insight in farmers’ needs and priorities, and helped the associations to re-shape the services to its members. In collaboration with SENAR (National Rural Learning Service), we continued gathering data from coffee farmers to develop a strategy to incorporate a Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA) component to the portfolio of rural advisory services in Minas Gerais. In cocoa, we started to develop the business case for the Technical Assistance service provision, which is being tested by Coopercau (farmers cooperative). We also supported Cargill and Olam to develop sustainability criteria to implement their barter scheme, which has the potential to become a rewarding mechanism for smallholder farmers that apply zero-deforestation practices. This would bring sustainability to the core of the value chain by embedding a reward mechanism that represents more productivity and income to the producers. Together with Cutrale, one of the main orange juice processing industries in the world, and its main buyers, Coca-Cola, Eckes-Granini and Innocent Drinks, we are reaching producers through online training, local partners and remote assistance. This initiative was in its first stages and it was heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic because field visits are key for the trust-building process, and we could reach most of them only through digital media. We expect to make up for this in 2021, provided that the Covid-19 situation in Brazil improves.
Feeding the World: China Market Componen Recognizing the Chinese market as the largest destination for soy from South America (Argentina, Brazil, etc.), Solidaridad China has been engaging top Chinese soy importers to build awareness on responsible sourcing, emphasizing the need to demand for reducing soy production contribution to deforestation and land conversion. With the ongoing work Solidaridad has done to establish the Sustainable Soy Trade Platform (SSTP), with the first phase of building awareness on deforestation and sustainability issues amongst Chinese soy industry stakeholders, the assumption is that company members will develop a willingness to transition from business-as-usual to responsible sourcing. Solidaridad will facilitate in awareness building through study tours and workshops, in addition to helping companies to build capacity and implementation plans for responsible sourcing in the long term (2018-2020).
Systems for Actions Development of IT system for collection of real  time granular data