Tool No. 10: Ownership and political commitment

This note is intended to stimulate thinking about what ownership means and how it can lay the foundations for an effective NAP.1 “Ownership” is generally agreed to be of vital importance to the NAP – without real national ownership, a NAP is unlikely to be implemented to any significant degree and unlikely to bring about meaningful change. If there is real ownership of the NAP, it means that partners acknowledge that the eradication of forced labour is “their business” and will prioritise this in their respective agendas. This applies to government, social partners and other civil society partners. As the government and the Parliament are the ones driving change in many aspects, for example, by adopting and enforcing laws and policies on forced labour, political commitment is also essential. Below, you will find concrete suggestions of what can be done at each stage of the NAP formulation process to create ownership of the NAP and what partners may do to stimulate political commitment. It should be borne in mind that a truly inclusive consultation and formulation process is the most important step towards national ownership of the NAP. Inclusive processes tend to be lengthier, but skipping partners or steps in the consultation process may be costly in terms of ownership and (non) implementation in the long run. Hence, striving to make the NAP formulation process as inclusive as possible should be the aim of lead agencies at all times.