"Investigative Findings and Recommendations: In response to allegations of non-compliance with UNDP’s social and environmental standards and other relevant policies in the context of UNDP's Business Call to Action Project Alliance Phase II"

The investigation, including field work, was focused on the adequacy of UNDP’s due diligence and related transparency in the context of the BCtA project –not on whether Bidco has, or has not, violated human rights or is complicit in human rights violations. The latter determination is beyond the scope of this report...

If UNDP had applied the ESSP to the BCtA Prodoc, it could have determined that, in addition to potential benefits, risks associated with support for private sector companies engagements with poor communities as suppliers, consumers, producers, and distributors of goods and services, include risks related to power imbalances and the potential for exploitation. For example, a fundamental issue for the BCtA project is that populations targeted for assistance –‘the poor’ –are financially marginalized by definition, and often also politically marginalized in practice. In this context, in the absence of explicit attention to social safeguards, including the protection of rights of marginalized populations and their ability to access information related to projects, participate in key project decisions, and have access to adequate remedy for harms, etc., exploitation is possible. For example, if, while promoting the integration of the impoverished in a supply chain of a BCtA company, UNDP fails to consider and promote adequate price/wage and labor conditions, UNDP could simply be facilitating in expensive labor or supplies for the member company. These impacts could adversely damage UNDP’s reputation and the communities it seeks to help

We recommend...[that UNDP] screen the BCtA project using the SESP to identify: (a) social and environmental risks and potential impacts associated with providing a platform for inclusive business and with downstream engagements of UNDP with private sector entities; and (b) measures to avoid and mitigate these risks and impacts;