Sustainable Development and Responsible Investment

We believe the commitment of the corporate sector towards accountable, inclusive and just growth requires strong communities and a strong civil society as a whole, capable of engaging with the corporate sector and holding it accountable. This, in turn, requires ensuring an environment of governmental policy and practice conducive to the success of capable communities and civil society organisations. In addition to this, a more effective regulation of foreign investment is required.

Goal

Women and men of all ethnic groups who are living in poverty benefit fairly from accountable, inclusive, sustainable development strategy and corporate sector investment in agriculture, natural resources and other relevant sectors, especially in the rural areas of the country.

What we want to achieve

• Women and men of all ethnic groups will have greater control of and capacity to defend their rights to land, water and other resources, and gain more of a say and more power to ensure that investment projects are transparent, accountable, responsible and supportive of the poor’s right to sustainable livelihoods and overall wellbeing.

• The GOL, from the central to the local level, will create an enabling environment for responsible and sustainable investment, including a coherent and comprehensive regulatory framework and effective governance, to ensure that the corporate sector is held to account on the legal framework and voluntary standards.

• Corporate sector investment in agribusiness and other natural resources sectors will increasingly adopt and implement codes of conduct and other practices that meet international standards, national legal frameworks, corporate social responsibility, responsible investment, and human rights, among others.

• Alternative models of sustainable and equitable development, where smallholder farmers control and manage their own productive resources with improved access to markets, are supported and advocated by active citizens and civil society organisations.

How we achieve it

• Supporting the enhancement of civil society and community participation in decision making, especially in building representative organisations, exploring and piloting sustainable development models that can serve as bases for advocating mainstream approaches and public policies, and the promotion of multi-stakeholder dialogues on development options.

• Raising partners and general public awareness on sustainable development models to foster a critical debate about choices and alternatives for development.

• Advocating with government for enabling a pro-poor regulatory and policy environment for sustainable investments, anchored on evidence-based work and promoting a new mind-set on development.

• Encouraging and advocating for inclusive and responsible investment initiatives through positive and critical engagement with local and central government authorities and the corporate sector towards increased investment in alternative models of development.

• With pioneer private companies, supporting sustainable initiatives of inclusive and responsible investment and use learning from those initiatives in the broader influencing work on alternative development models.

Our partners and relevant stakholders

• Lao Women’s Union (LWU)

• National Institute of Economic Research (NIER)

• National University of Laos

• Land Information Working Group (LIWG)

• Participatory Development Training Centre (PADETC)

• Lao Biodiversity Association (LBA)

• Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE)

• Comité de Coopération avec le Laos (CCL)

• CLICK

• Mind Media