The Programme Office for Social and Ecological Standards cooperates with a range of national and international organisations from both the public and private sectors. Partnerships with the private sector are particularly relevant in the context of voluntary standards. The Programme also participates in networks concerned with social and ecological standards. Moreover, the individual programme components cooperate with partners in their respective fields.

Selected examples are presented below.

Cooperation with the private sector

EurepGAP and Coop
In association with EurepGAP and the Swiss retail chain Coop, the Programme is implementing the GRASP project: Good Risk-Based Agricultural Social Practices. In this project, criteria for good social practices in agriculture are developed and then tested in various countries. The objective is to stimulate the further development of existing food standards such as the EurepGAP standard.

KraftFoods and Armajaro Ltd.
The Programme is cooperating with the food and beverage company KraftFoods and Armajaro, a company exporting cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, in a project to improve the social, ecological and economic conditions in cocoa production. In two pilot regions the project is supporting the preparation of smallholders for certification under sustainability standards, training courses in good agricultural practices, and awareness campaigns to reduce child labour and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Participation in networks

Trade Standards Practitioners Network (TSPN)
The Programme Office for Social and Ecological Standards participates in the Trade Standards Practitioners Network initiated by the World Bank. This is a network of technical specialists exchanging their experiences in the fields of trade-relevant social and ecological standards as well as food safety standards in agriculture and the food sector. They aim to jointly develop best practices to support organisations in developing countries in elaborating and implementing standards. The network is composed of experts from bilateral and multilateral development cooperation agencies, standardisation and accreditation organisations, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and consulting companies.

Cooperation with non-governmental organisations

• ISEAL Alliance
  The International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance is an association of leading international organisations in the fields of standardisation, certification and accreditation. We cooperated with the ISEAL Alliance in developing the Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards.
  www.isealalliance.org
• ECL Space
  The Ethical Certification and Labelling Space is a multi-stakeholder forum with equitable participation of relevant actors for elaborating best practice guidelines for ethical certification and labelling programmes. We supported this initiative in its inception phase, in which case studies were prepared as a basis for further developing the ECL Space concept.
  www.eclspace.org