Better Cotton’s New Decent Work Roadmap Expands Actions to Improve Livelihoods

Better Cotton has launched a new roadmap for its decent work activities charting a transformative path towards dignified livelihoods for millions of people.

The roadmap provides an ambitious and comprehensive framework by which Better Cotton will build on years of learnings and work with its field-level partners to further reduce vulnerabilities, enhance workers’ voices, and secure better working conditions by 2030. It represents a new phase for Better Cotton’s decent work strategy, with focus on three important and interconnected areas: farm-level, programmes and partnerships, and multistakeholder collaboration.

Leyla Shamchiyeva, Senior Manager for Decent Work at Better Cotton, said: “Through collective action we can build a fairer, more resilient cotton sector in which farmers and workers are free from child labour, forced labour, workplace harassment, discrimination and violence of any kind.”

Better Cotton’s new roadmap comes hot on the heels of its 2020-2025 Decent Work Strategy Progress Report, launched earlier this month. It moves beyond the organisation’s approach to ‘learn, strengthen and monitor’, which has been integral to laying the foundations for progress in this area.

According to the roadmap, farm-level actions will include more guidance for field-level partners on decent work indicators of Better Cotton’s Principles & Criteria, enhanced labour monitoring and remediation, and efforts to increase wage transparency in order to define baseline data and drive measurable improvements.

On programmes and partnerships, onus will be placed on strengthening the capacities of Programme Partners, striking up mutually beneficial collaborations with like-minded organisations and experts to exchange learnings and best practices, and raising vital funds to accelerate this important work.  

Finally, multistakeholder engagement will ensure that Better Cotton’s efforts to promote decent work are reinforced through collective action and advocacy with the organisation’s partners, including members, other multistakeholder initiatives and governments, helping drive the systemic change required to tackle underlying structural issues.

To read the full roadmap, please see below:

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Better Cotton Decent Work Strategy: A Roadmap to 2030

This document outlines Better Cotton’s long-term commitment to decent work and the roadmap to achieving its medium-term objectives by 2030.

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Assurance Capacity Strengthening

Notes to Editors 

• Better Cotton’s 2020-2025 Decent Work Strategy Progress Report reflected on the work the organisation has undertaken over the last five years to advance decent working conditions, from the adoption of an ‘assess and address’ approach to the implementation of enhanced due diligence processes. 

• Better Cotton’s Principles & Criteria underpin the organisation’s field-level standard, which farmers must comply with in order to attain a Better Cotton licence. 

• Programme Partners work with farming communities at field level to ensure they are producing cotton that meets the Better Cotton Standard. 

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