There is increased recognition of the value of moving beyond a focus primarily on fiduciary standards to also ensure that social and environmental standards are recognized and applied as part of an organization’s commitment to transparency and accountability, as these take into account the potential impacts on people and the environment. Social and environmental safeguard policies are now considered a vital component of development interventions and public disclosure. In order to enable organizations to publish corporate sustainability commitments and project-level safeguard related documents as part of their publication to the IATI standard we would like to suggest the addition of the following items to the Document Category codelist;
Category A – Activity level
- Social and Environmental safeguard document: Since most IFIs already require the application of safeguards to projects, this would enable IATI publishers to start reporting project level safeguard documents (e.g. screenings, assessments, management plans) if they wish to do so.
Category B – Organization level
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Programme and Project Management Policy/Procedure: This would enable the disclosure of organizational policies related to programme/project management, which would include corporate social and environmental safeguards policies.
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Grievance Mechanism(s) : Grievance mechanisms are an important aspect of accountability and transparency. This would primarily be a link to the policy or webpage with information on an organization’s grievance mechanism and case register (e.g. for UNDP it is at www.undp.org/secu-srm)
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Corporate Sustainability Report : This would be relevant for organizations that publish data on their environmental and social footprint and sustainability, e.g. through the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)