Timetable

Topic: Making global supply chains safer

Each morning, somewhere in the world, 1,000 people leave home for work and don’t come back, and another 6500 people die daily from diseases contracted as a result of an exposure to risk factors arising from work activity. These are the people who make our clothes. Grow the beans for our coffee. Construct the buildings in which we live and work. They need safe, healthy workplaces, and deserve our shared commitment to improving health and safety up and down the global supply chain. The G-7-mandated and ILO-administered Vision Zero Fund (VZF) mobilize governments, employers, workers and other stakeholders to make real, measurable improvements in worker health and safety where they are most needed. Working at all levels of the supply chain, from factories and fields to governments and global enterprises, the VZF strategically target sectors and regions where it believes it can make a positive difference.

This session will be divided into two parts. Part I will discuss what global buyers can do to improve safety and health along global supply chains, especially when operating in countries with weak or deficient national safety and health and employment injury protection schemes. Part II is dedicated to a discussion of Vision Zero Fund’s efforts to make global supply chains safer. It will highlight good practices and achievements, but also identify endemic challenges that will require the collective action of all stakeholders, including multinational enterprises and OSH practitioners, to address.