On March 17, 2014, the Board of MSI Integrity announced that it has adopted the core recommendations that resulted from our inaugural global consultation and review process. The complete statement detailing the developments announced by the Board can be downloaded here: MSI Integrity Board Announcement March 17 2014.
This announcement followed careful review of the Advisory Group Recommendations and Considerations Report (“Report”), conducted between November 2013 and February 2014. An Advisory Group of experts with backgrounds in business, human rights, government and academia presented the report to the Board on October 16, 2013. The report was based on a thorough review of the comments and feedback received during the consultation process.
More than 100 individuals and organizations provided written comments or participated in the ten regional meetings held on six continents. The comments and feedback throughout the process affirmed the need to establish objective methods for evaluating multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), and to facilitate research and share learning regarding the effectiveness of MSIs from a human rights perspective. The process also provided valuable feedback for MSI Integrity to improve our approaches and criteria for evaluating MSIs, and maximize our contribution to MSIs that are addressing business and human rights.
Summary of Actions to Implement the Core Recommendations
The consultation feedback demonstrated that there is very strong support for MSI Integrity’s mission and work. The recommendations from the Advisory Group focused on further developing MSI Integrity’s proposed methodology and mandate, and also suggested some minor modifications to our evaluation methodology. The full list of recommendations is available in the Report. To implement these recommendations, the Board has announced the following:
Evaluations of MSIs
- MSI Integrity’s Board has realigned our mandate to focus more on sharing MSI evaluation tools and methodologies for public use. We will conduct only a limited number of comprehensive evaluations of select MSIs each year, which will help to continually refine the criteria and methods as well as build data to understand the impact and value of MSIs.
- For future evaluations, MSI Integrity will enhance engagement with MSIs and stakeholders during evaluations by striving to create terms of reference with MSIs prior to conducting evaluations, where possible. The terms of reference will encourage direct input from MSI members.
- A revised MSI Evaluation Tool and assessment methodology will be released in March 2014 that incorporates feedback related to indicator criteria and clarifies assessment procedures. The criteria known as “minimum standards” will be re-named “essential elements”, selection criteria for MSIs will be clarified, and scoring of evaluated MSIs will be postponed until further research and empirical data can inform appropriate methods to calculate and present useful scoring.
- In 2014, MSI Integrity will publish a report analyzing key findings and general trends from the pilot MSI evaluations of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, Fair Labor Association, Global Network Initiative, Kimberley Process, and 4C (Common Code for the Coffee Community).
Research & Engagement
MSI Integrity will respond to the growing demand for research and learning opportunities for MSIs and affected stakeholders. This includes:
- Planning dialogues among stakeholder groups across MSIs to facilitate greater sharing of lessons and good practice, and identification of common concerns.
- Identifying and mapping existing business and human rights-related MSIs in an accessible online database.
- Exploring research into specific issues of concern to MSIs and rights-holders. Any MSI or stakeholder can contact MSI Integrity to request that research be conducted on a specific issue. This could range from suggesting an aspect of an MSI that is considered particularly innovative and worthy of examination for a “Good Practice” case note, through to requesting MSI Integrity examine an particular aspect of an MSI, or an issue affecting many MSIs, that has proved challenging.
Research into Impact
In the long term, MSI Integrity will continue to focus on developing methodologies to understand the on-the-ground impact of MSIs from a human rights perspective. MSI Integrity recognizes the challenges of assessing impact and has begun to build research networks to combine existing expertise regarding impact assessment. Targeted research projects (discussed above) will also allow for controlled experimentation of impact assessment methodologies.
Future Global Consultation and Review
In keeping with MSI Integrity’s commitment to strive for engagement and reflexive consultation with all stakeholders, public global consultations will be held every three to five years to seek feedback on the major components of MSI Integrity’s work.
Read the Announcement in Full
To download the complete announcement, click here: MSI Integrity Board Announcement March 17 2014.
Last updated: March 17, 2014