The introduction of social standards is an important aspect of improving the working and living conditions of workers in developing and transition countries and, in turn, of helping to fight poverty. The Social Standards component of the Programme Office for Social and Ecological Standards promotes the introduction, enforcement and monitoring of social standards.

Multi-stakeholder initiatives
The development and introduction of social standards through codes of conduct in certain industries and sectors requires close cooperation between all parties involved. These include the management, union representatives, business associations, government agencies and non-governmental organisations. Only if all parties engage in the negotiations as partners, and if the entire process is fair and transparent, will they all observe the resulting standards and regard them as binding. Initiatives involving these different stakeholders are referred to as multi-stakeholder initiatives.

We initiate multi-stakeholder processes, e.g. the Round Table on Codes of Conduct in Germany, as well as national Round Tables in eleven developing and transition countries.

Cooperation with the private sector
Enterprises play a key role in terms of ensuring compliance with social standards in developing and transition countries. We therefore foster cooperation between the public and the private sector (Public Private Partnerships or PPP projects). We assist German businesses in identifying shortcomings in their production plants and introducing improvement plans. For instance, we run PPP projects with the Foreign Trade Association of the German Retail Trade (AVE), Volkswagen (VW) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Capacity Building
We promote training measures for:

• small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries in the field of profitable social management,
• workers in the cut flower industry, who are informed of their rights as employees and of environmentally friendly flower production,
• employees and managers at the supplier level  in the footwear, textile and sports apparel industries, where both sides of industry learn to engage in a dialogue and discuss social standards.

Fair trade
For years the fair trade movement has worked to achieve fair and sustainable prices for producers, direct and reliable trade partnerships, and humane working conditions, especially in the agricultural sector. In cooperation with national and international fair trade organisations we support product diversification and work to increase the market share of fair trade products. We also support the newly established Forum Fairer Handel (Fair Trade Forum) that coordinates fair trade activities in Germany.