Talk:Solidaridad (organization)

Some proposed changes/corrections

{{request edit/significant}}

Hi Wiki team,

I work for this organization (Solidaridad) and the current information on this page is inaccurate. Below are some changes and additional information to give a real overview of our organization. I did my best to keep it as neutral as possible. Is there any way you can help me make the changes? I would do it myself, but something keeps going wrong. If this is too much or I'm doing something wrong, I'm happy to fix it. Thank you for your time! Regards, Joshua

Updated text: The Solidaridad Network is an international civil society organization facilitating the development of socially responsible, ecologically sound and profitable supply chains, working through nine regional expertise centres in around 40 countries. Solidaridad seeks to transform production practices in such a way that it provides fair and profitable livelihoods and business opportunities, guarantees decent working conditions and a fair living wage, without depleting the landscapes where people live and thrive.

Activities - Solidaridad implements local sustainability programmes through expertise centres in the following regions: Central America, China, East & Central Africa, Europe, North America, South & South-East Asia, South America, Southern Africa, West Africa. - Solidaridad works to improve the sustainability of supply chains for major global commodities including cotton, livestock, tea, sugarcane, fruits & vegetables, gold, soy, cocoa, coffee, textiles, palm oil, aquaculture, and dairy. - Solidaridad focuses on the following innovation areas to improve global supply chains: gender inclusivity, climate change, landscape management, digital solutions, and impact investments.

History The organization was founded in 1969 by bishops and then gained support from several Dutch churches to become an ecumenical development agency. The founding principles were highly inspired by the radical change in Latin American society and churches in the 1970s.

Evolving from the idea that consumers have the power to transform sectors toward sustainability, Solidaridad established Fair Trade labeling in the late 1980s. Starting with coffee (the Max Havelaar label), followed by bananas and other commodities, Solidaridad co-founded several labels that have become leading in the market for sustainable products.

In the 1990s, Solidaridad broadened its scope toward working with companies in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes and certification. Moving forward, the organization focused further on working with producers in international supply chains by supporting round tables for commodities like soy, palm oil, sugarcane and cotton.

Since 2000, Solidaridad has grown significantly and transformed into a global network organization with a global governance structure and management, as well as delegated regional programme implementation.

Solidaridad launched a multi-annual strategic plan in 2016 which defined new result areas for development: good practices, robust infrastructures, landscape innovations, and enabling policy environments. These four result areas contribute to two overarching aims: sustainable and inclusive sectors, and sustainable landscapes. Good agricultural practices remain a focal point for Solidaridad's work.

Structure In order to ensure efficient daily operations and payment structure, Solidaridad’s regional expertise centres are grouped on five continents, each with their own supervisory structure. Legal entities for these five continental Solidaridad regions are established in Utrecht, the Netherlands (for Europe), San Francisco, USA (for North America), Panama City, Panama (for Latin America), Nairobi, Kenya (for Africa) and Hong Kong, China (for Asia).

The organization consists of nine regional expertise centres throughout the world with a Network Secretariat connecting the centres. The Network Secretariat (officially Solidaridad Network Foundation, founded in 2011) is located in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in the same office building as Solidaridad Europe, one of the regional expertise centres. The Network Secretariat is the seat of the Executive Director with a small staff surrounding the director and delivering support and guidance for the global network.

Governance Solidaridad’s governance structure is based on the continental European governance model. This means, among others, a board with a two-tier structure, emphasis on dialogue with stakeholders and focus on achieving consensus. This governance model follows the subsidiarity principle. It aims to ensure that decisions are made as closely as possible to the deepest levels in the organization and that constant checks are made to verify that actions across Solidaridad Network are justified in light of the possibilities available at continental, regional or national level.

Management Within Solidaridad, the International Supervisory Board is at the highest level of international oversight. The International Supervisory Board monitors policies, the quality of programmes, financial control and the performance of the Executive Board of Directors (EBoD). Direct supervision of the regional centres is organized per continent. Each Continental Supervisory Board (CSB) is represented in the international board by its chairman, thus enabling the international board to focus on the interest of the Solidaridad Network as a whole, instead of focusing on individual regional centres.

Finances In alignment with the governance structure of Solidaridad Network, consolidated financial statements are not prepared. The audited financial statements of each regional expertise centre are published on the respective annual report pages for those centres after the approval of the continental boards. (See external links below.)

All regional centres align with and enforce Solidaridad systems and standards for financial management and control. The Solidaridad Network works in a cloud-based system that provides support in the following areas in an integrated manner: account management, fund management, financial management and planning, and monitoring and evaluation of projects.

Evaluations The Solidaridad Network has a global team of specialists for planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. Solidaridad concentrated on modernizing and improving its internal systems to be able to track progress and impact worldwide. Every project and partner organization has been included in a system that allows Solidaridad to track and verify global performance indicators.

Performance indicators are mainly related to Solidaridad's outreach in terms of numbers of beneficiaries, factories, companies, hectares under sustainable management, etcetera. In addition to measuring results in terms of sustainable agricultural and mining practices, Solidaridad also measures new global indicators related to: - robust infrastructures for farmers and miners (access to services, credit, and markets) - enabling policy environments - sustainable landscape management JsWhetsell (talk) 05:01, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Please post your request at the talkpage of the page you need the changes to be made, not here. Thanks. –Ammarpad (talk) 09:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip, Ammarpad. I have now transferred the proposed changes to the correct Talk page, I think. JsWhetsell (talk) 08:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Wiki team, Just to be clear, our goal here is not to promote our organization but to provide up to date and accurate information. Feel free to make changes as you see fit. Our house style is Oxford English but you are welcome to change it according to the Wiki style guide. I'm happy to answer questions or provide more material as needed. JsWhetsell (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi –Ammarpad I think I did everything correctly. Can you check for me? I haven't heard anything back yet, so I was wondering if there was a procedure for getting the correct info published about our organization. Thanks! JsWhetsell (talk) 09:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)