In 2021, T4SD’s collaboration with SLCP made great progress. Under this project, funded by DG International Partnerships, ITC supports the adoption of a Converged Assessment Framework (CAF) for factory social and labour data collection that is meant to reduce duplicative audits, provide increased transparency in value chains, and ultimately improve working conditions. To achieve this goal, T4SD created The Gateway, a free-to-use online tool that allows factories to securely store and share their verified social and labour assessment data with multiple brand partners, eliminating the need for repetitive and costly audits.

Overall, utilization of the Gateway increased dramatically in 2021, nearly tripling the number of users of the CAF to over 7,500 facilities in 53 countries and generating an estimated $18 million USD in savings. Moreover, the SLCP CAF was aligned with the ILO Better Work factory assessment in 2021, enabling facilities in Better Work countries to adopt the tool.

To support MSME facilities, T4SD and SLCP provided virtual trainings to over 2,000 facility representatives across all countries of implementation. The bespoke e-learning platform associated with the project was also updated in English and six additional languages