Back to news
22 Jul 2019 | Air pollution solutions

Code of conduct being formalized for gender and social inclusion in the brick sector

2 mins Read

70% Complete
The national consultation workshop on a social Code of Conduct for Nepal’s brick sector aimed to alleviate the working and living conditions of brick workers across the country. (Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya/ICIMOD)

A national consultation workshop on a social Code of Conduct (CoC) for Nepal’s brick sector was held in Kathmandu on 28–29 June 2019. Participants from across the country including the president – Mahendra Bahadur Chitrakar – and programme steering committee members of the Federation of Nepal Brick Industries (FNBI) gathered to discuss and develop a way forward on the draft CoC. Representatives from 24 district brick associations, which included 19 district presidents and five province-level focal coordinators, also attended the workshop.

The FNBI and other stakeholders in the Nepalese brick sector have been working on gradually making the sector environmentally and socially responsible. Developing a formal document governing the sector is a significant step towards integrating gender and social issues to improve the working and living conditions of brick workers, both women and men. The draft of the Social CoC – developed by the FNBI with technical support from ICIMOD and MinErgy Pvt Ltd – has been prepared in line with prevailing Government of Nepal documents such as Nepal Labour Policies (2075) and the Occupational Safety and Health-related Brick Kiln Directives (2075).

The two-day workshop was facilitated by Krishna P Awale and Shankhar B Chand from senior members of the FNBI. The FNBI’s facilitating role demonstrates its ownership in advancing this CoC to address the working and living conditions of brick workers. The workshop aimed to create a platform for discussion and work towards a cleaner brick sector by:

There was positive and in-depth feedback from the participants on the inclusiveness and practicality of each of the 20 domains under these four principles in the CoC: (1) end child labour (2); transparent employment conditions; (3) basic workplace facilities; and (4) safe workplace for women workers. Each domain has a checklist which will measure each principle. This will provide evidence on how many domains under each principle are implemented on the ground effectively and documented properly.

The workshop concluded with the following path being charted for the Social CoC:

 

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

RELATED CONTENTS

Continue exploring this topic

6 Dec 2017 News
MOPE, EU, and ICIMOD host International Conference on Resilient HKH

Resilience is the ability of communities and ecosystems to be prepared for shocks, recover from shocks, and “bounce forward” to ...

21 Sep 2018 REDD+
ICIMOD supports Myanmar in drafting REDD + Action Plan for Shan State

Myanmar has the largest remaining forest area in Southeast Asia, with 44% of its land classified as forest, but it ...

30 Jul 2015 Atmosphere Initiative
Emission study to close data gaps

Emission is a major determinant of air quality, and improving quantification and characterization of emission sources in the Hindu Kush ...

6 Jul 2016 News
Improving Sediment Knowledge

A training for readers of sediment measurement in selected gauging stations of the Koshi River basin in Nepal was organised ...

4 Feb 2016 Climate change
Myanmar Journalists Learn Climate Change Communication

A five-day training for 20 Myanmar journalists on reporting climate change adaptation was organised by the International Centre for Integrated ...

9 May 2017 KSL
Picture Series: A New Generation of Trainers

Within this framework, several picture series community awareness sessions on different topics have been conducted in the past year and ...

8 May 2015 News
ICIMOD maps earthquake-affected settlements to aid relief and recovery efforts

Responding to a request from the Ministry of Home Affairs, ICIMOD has deployed a task force made up of GIS ...