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New ECLT Foundation 7-year Strategic Plan: Building Synergies for a Significant Reduction in Child Labour by 2022

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 23 2016 – In 2016, the ECLT Foundation began implementing a new, seven-year strategic plan, aiming to significantly reduce child labour by 2022 by engaging with every stakeholder in the tobacco-growing supply chain, as each plays a critical role.

“This new strategic period for the ECLT Foundation will build on successes of the last several years, during which the Foundation has grown as a convener of public and private efforts, a community mobilizer and global thought leader”, said Antonio Abrunhosa, President of the ECLT Foundation. “Looking ahead, the strategic plan provides both concrete objectives to strive for, as well as the flexibility to adapt to address ever-shifting realities in tobacco growing around the world.”

Universal coverage of education, promotion of decent work opportunities, protection against hazardous labour for legally-working youth, and building sustainable livelihoods in farming communities are some parts of the foundation’s mandate for the next seven years. The new strategic plan sets up four cross-cutting programmes, ACT, ACCOMPANY, INFLUENCE and BUILD KNOWLEDGE, each of which move the foundation toward the goal of significantly reducing child labour.

Through these four strategic programmes, the ECLT Foundation will advance its comprehensive efforts, addressing the complex roots of child labour in tobacco growing at local, national and international levels. Piloting innovative approaches and methodologies, supporting the ECLT Member’s pledge of commitment and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, engaging national actors on policy and awareness raising, and spreading good practices come together as key programme elements. Building on more than a decade of experience, the ECLT Foundation is uniquely positioned to successfully undertake these diverse activities, each targeted at tackling different facets of the causes of child labour in the tobacco-growing supply chain.

The new strategic plan follows the ECLT Foundation’s multi-stakeholder approach and sets out a framework for how the foundation aims to optimize efforts, employing coordination and technical support to achieve lasting change. The plan creates a platform for effective coordination/collaboration within the foundation’s actions and the efforts in the tobacco-growing supply chain.

The 2016-2022 strategic planning process brought together stakeholders, including ECLT board members, staff and advisors, to develop a roadmap to guide the Foundation’s work. This process generated visionary insights regarding crucial issues that emerged, as well as a commitment to addressing them, as they directly inform the ECLT Foundation’s advocacy agenda.

Click here for an overview of the ECLT Foundation’s new Strategic Plan 2016-2022.