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The latest on the Task Force on Inequality-Related Financial Disclosures (TIFD)

The Taskforce on Inequality-related Financial Disclosures (TIFD) and the organisations preparing a Taskforce on Social-related Financial Disclosures (TSFD) – two initiatives that have been developing in parallel – are now consolidating efforts into a single initiative.

The shared vision for the Taskforce’s mandate is to develop a global framework for financial disclosures with a scope that provisionally encompasses social- and inequality-related risks and opportunities affecting financial stability and long-term enterprise value creation. Recognizing market demand for harmonized disclosure guidance, the Taskforce will leverage third-party research and collaborate with existing initiatives to build convergence and identify critical gaps.

The disclosure framework will be designed for consideration in the future work of standard-setting bodies and designed to ensure interoperability with the frameworks of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).

The Taskforce will be constituted and operated in a manner that enables a co-creation process in which those advocating for the people most impacted by inequality have an explicit role in building the framework alongside investors, companies, regulators, academics, and other stakeholders. An early priority will be to develop an inclusive governance structure that includes a balance of these stakeholder representatives.

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Our members: Equity Foundation

After the virtuality left by the pandemic, we resumed visits to our members in person. In this way, the Fundación Equidad received us.

Since 2001, Fundación Equidad has worked with people from the neediest social sectors, promoting their social, educational, and labor integration through new technologies and digital training.

They have three programs: a recycling workshop, a technical school, and CSR projects.

In the Fundación Equidad Workshop, they receive unused computers from companies, individuals, and state agencies, recycle them and donate them to organizations, soup kitchens, and schools that need them to carry out their projects. They receive approximately one ton of computers daily, managing to recycle and donate between 2,000 and 3,000 computers annually.

Through this process, they collaborate with reducing the digital divide in Argentina, also taking care of the environment since they prevent computers from becoming electronic waste.

The technical school offers computer courses to expand access to digital tools and promote the social and labor insertion of young people, adults, and the elderly.

Regarding CSR projects, they are in charge of making agreements aligned with the needs of each company that wants to collaborate with them, the environment, and society.

The main objectives of the foundation are:

  • Create a culture of reuse and recycling of technology to reduce the digital divide.
  • Promote equal access to education, information, knowledge, and new technologies
  • Consolidate a network of people who exchange knowledge and best practices for social development through information technologies.
  • Provide more significant opportunities for training and job placement for young people and adults.

During the visit, we could tour the workshop, learn about the procedures carried out for the repair of equipment and who is in charge of this task. Also, we were able to meet with part of the team so that they could tell us a little about their trajectory, the projects they have in progress, and the difficulties they face as an organization.

Today, the organization needs a larger amount of electronic equipment donations to deliver more computers to those who need them. If your organization or business can donate equipment, get in touch!

You can visit their social networks to find out about their activities: facebook, instagram, twitter, linkedin and youtube.

Thanks for having us!

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Closing of the Civil Society in Action Campaign

From April 10 to 16, the RACI team called us to carry out and spread Good Deeds Day, a worldwide movement of people who intend to do good.

From RACI, we decided to take this initiative and launch the Civil Society in Action campaign, which sought to make visible the work of Civil Society in Argentina, disseminating initiatives and causes carried out by the organizations.

The main objectives were to promote the visibility of Civil Society actions as a sector that positively impacts communities and to promote a networking culture.

Being our first campaign in collaboration with Good Deeds Day, it was announced virtually, thus allowing organizations from all over the country to participate and generating more incidence in the territory.

In fact, the results were very positive. The campaign not only helps those organizations that are smaller and seek to be recognized, but also connections were generated between the same CSOs that saw the opportunity to complement each other and get to know each other.

At our 2023 Members’ Assembly we took the opportunity to publicize the campaign and invite participants to take photos with our Civil Society in Action poster in order to share their actions.

In addition, we take the opportunity to thank all the donors who help strengthen Civil Society Organizations, since without them growth would not be possible.

In our social networks you will be able to find the content that we spread during the week of Good Deeds Day and the initiatives that were shared with us.

Thank you very much for participating and for being interested in Civil Society in Action!

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Get to Know the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE)

We would like to share very exciting news: our Executive Director, Guillermo Correa, is now part of the IAVE Board as a regional representative for Latin America.

Founded in 1970, IAVE is the International Association for Volunteer Effort. It exists to promote, strengthen and celebrate volunteering in the myriad ways it happens worldwide. It is a global network of NGOs, companies, national volunteer centers and grassroots volunteer leaders, with members in 70 countries in all world regions.

To deepen the work carried out by IAVE, we interviewed Nichole Cirillo, Executive Director of the Association, who shared her knowledge with us and answered all our questions.

What is IAVE, and what does it do?

IAVE is a global organization, we have been in business for over 50 years, and our mission is really to promote and build volunteer leadership and enabling environments so that volunteering can create a more just and sustainable world.

 It is a mission that, like any organization, has changed in the last 50 years, but we feel truly compelled and dedicated to it at this particular time when there are so many global emergencies. We believe in the power of volunteering to help solve them.

 So our particular model is working with leaders, whether they’re corporate leaders as part of our Global Corporate Volunteer Council or with civil society organizations.

Regarding the context in which it was founded and the changes they have gone through over the years, Nichole told us that:

The association was founded in the United States by a group of dedicated volunteers who thought it was valuable to create this space for global practitioners and volunteers to come and talk about the challenges ahead. From there, something called the world volunteer conference started. It is something that happens to this day every two years and still has the same spirit of uniting people from all over the world. When you meet with us, volunteers meet as friends where together they can discuss and try to resolve global political issues and the urgency they understand.

 So the organization has evolved in many ways since then, and we still do that conference. But again, we focus on leadership development, building the capacity of leaders. We also focus on advocacy and raising our voices so that volunteering can be practiced everywhere and is valued and recognized. Then we also focus on what we call knowledge creation, where we create and collect ideas that demonstrate the impact that volunteering generates and the value of volunteering.

 What are the latest trends in volunteering? How is the volunteer landscape perceived today?

 We did a study in 2021 that looked at our global network of volunteer leaders around the world, around 120 of whom RACI is a member, and we asked this question:

 What was it like for you to practice what you do during Covid-19?

 At the same time, UN Volunteers released its 2022 State of Global Volunteering report and another global organization had a similar report. So we put these three reports together to see what was happening globally around volunteering and what the trends were. One was this focus on inclusion: everywhere, people had started to really look at who was left behind when we traditionally talked about volunteering, what types of people have barriers to participation, including young people in some cases or older people during the Covid who were prevented from volunteering

We took a look at that, and globally, people looked at it and decided now was the time to understand who is often left out and create spaces for them to continue.

 Another significant finding was the notion that there are large organizations that often send volunteers to developing countries. Usually, the way it works is that people from the global north country, USA. The US, Canada, or Europe go to underdeveloped countries to be “the experts,” I think this was questioned because, during Covid, these people were prevented from entering the countries for protection reasons.

 This global recognition and understanding that volunteer experts always came from the global North and people who needed help from the global South have changed. International volunteering is essential, but what is also very important is building the volunteer structures that already exist in those countries.

 How else do you think volunteer work can be encouraged?

I would say there are many ways to do it; look at the programs and find out how the barriers can be lowered. If all the shows are on weekends, that won’t work, or if they’re all during business hours, either. You should ask yourself for whom this would be difficult and try to remove as many of those barriers as possible. The notion that volunteering has to be this kind of regular commitment is something we’re trying to change.

 There’s micro-volunteering, as some people call it, or episodic volunteering, people who won’t sign up to volunteer for the next year because they just want to help with a problem, and today they have two hours to do it. They may never come back, but they’re still volunteers. Making space for that kind of volunteering is very important, and you have to change the systems to be able to do it.

 But it is also necessary to make room for the opposite—people of all levels who might want to see volunteering as a pathway to employability or greater employability. We are constantly working on something that connects employability or volunteering with employability skills.

 How important are the networks in the association? How do you work with them? What results do you see in terms of volunteer interest?

 I am a big believer in networks and networking. There is a theory called Metcalfe’s Law that was developed around the internet and in the early days of the internet when things were just getting started. The problem was that the more people used a network effectively, the stronger that network became.

 So that principle is something that I’ve tried to present at IAVE, a formulation of this Global Network for volunteer leaders. Networks are vital; there are several outstanding studies on the importance of networks for resilience and community resilience. Some studies looked at emergencies and weather events that occurred and found that people and communities did better in the face of these tragedies.

 There are no doubts about the data on the value of networks. That is everywhere. It’s how it’s built and how it looks that’s important, and for IAVE that has primarily meant something that’s co-engineered.

 It’s very reciprocal, so it’s not just what we get; it’s what we give and receive, so sometimes the members of the network will be the mentors, other times they’ll be the mentees, they’ll be taking the training, or even teaching you how to do it. train. It’s this notion that as a network, I get things, but I’m also responsible for giving things.

 And I think the third thing to me that’s really important about a network is that it harmonizes work and sets standards. What this needs to look like globally so everyone can see it. I understand what great volunteering is, so I think all those are really important components.

 From RACI, we also encourage and work with volunteers, and many of them have shown us their dedication to work, and today they are part of our formal team.

Find more information here.

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Latest OECD International Cooperation report and ODA data

The OECD published new data in April on the factors that are influencing aid flows, where they observed that foreign aid increased in 2022 due to spending on refugees in donor countries and aid to Ukraine.

Foreign aid from official donors rose to an all-time high of USD 204 billion in 2022, 13.6% more in real terms than USD 186 billion in 2021. This is because developed countries increased their aid spending on humanitarian law and in the processing and accommodation of refugees. This increase is one of the most significant increases in Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the fourth consecutive year that ODA has set a new record.

Another factor behind the 2022 increase was a jump in aid to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion and ongoing war of aggression. ODA to Ukraine in 2022 amounted to USD 16.1 billion, up from USD 918 million in 2021, including USD 1.8 billion in humanitarian aid.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a percentage of donors’ national GDP reached 0.36% in 2022, its highest rate in 40 years. However, only five OECD donors: Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Denmark, met the UN target of 0.7%.

ODA increased in 26 DAC countries in 2022, in many cases due to higher support for internal refugee costs, and fell in four countries. Poland (+255.6%), Czech Republic (+167.1%), Ireland (+125.1%), Lithuania (+121.6%), Slovenia (+48.7%), and Austria (+36 .2%) registered the largest increases.

According to OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war against Ukraine undid decades of development progress in developing countries. Thus, Cormann calls to action: “we must remain focused and accelerate progress in achieving our long-term development goals, especially in support of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.”

To read the full report, access the following link.

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Members Assembly 2023

On Friday, April 14, we met at AMIA with RACI members, where we presented our activity report between October 2022 and April of this year and reviewed our news and new projects in progress.

With the face-to-face and virtual participation of our members, we presented the mid-term evaluation of the strategic plan, and there our main objective: to assess the quality of the process developed concerning the four strategic axes of RACI, focusing on context, goals, processes, methods, and resources.

In addition, Mariela Belski, as the new President of RACI, had the floor, emphasizing our election year, thus highlighting the importance of strengthening democratic practices to continue growing as a network.

Being in direct contact with our members is essential to foster articulation and accountability every year. This closeness is central to our network and is also reflected in different meetings and dialogues with member organizations, training sessions, and other spaces that we make available.