SCORE mobilisation event- ILO begins recruiting next batches

The ILO under its European Union funded International Labour and Environmental Standards Application in Pakistan's SMEs project organised a mobilisation event in Karachi for recruiting its next batch of enterprises under its SCORE short course programme.

Press release | Karachi, Pakistan | 30 September 2021
KARACHI (ILO News):On 21st September 2021, the ILO, under its European Union funded International Labour and Environmental Standards Application in Pakistan’s SMEs (ILES) project, organised a one day mobilisation event with the aim of recruiting its next batch of enterprises under its Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme. A total of 15 enterprises belonging to the textiles and ready made garments sector, including three SCORE alumni enterprises and 12 new enterprises attended the workshop.

With situation of the pandemic now improving in Pakistan and more people getting vaccinated, ILO is now finally able to resume its in field enterprise support and therefore ready to start its next batch of SCORE.

During the event, the newly identified factories were introduced to the SCORE Global Programme, its methodology, SCORE Pakistan, and its achievements to date. This was followed by an experience sharing session where two of the enterprises who had completed SCORE implementation and were present in the event shared their experiences with the participating enterprises, and expressed how they thought SCORE provided them the right platform to focus on areas that may not evidently seem to be a priority for many but may actually have positive impacts on the factories in terms of their production capacity, quality of production, overall cost of production and efficient resource management. They also shared short videos from their factories reflecting their overall progress.

According to one of the members from the higher management of a SCORE Alumni factory:
“There are ISO standards, there are compliance requirements, there are audits, however none of them ever propose an approach that is systematic and becomes part of a system of an enterprise. However, SCORE provides you that, it gives you the improvements like the 5S backed by statistical parameters and a system in form of Enterprise Improvement Team, which I think institutionalises the improvement work conducted. On the contrary, as we all know for audits its more of a one time effort done by the factories to clear audits that are linked to our production needs, whereas here without any surveillance system and it being totally volunteer based, achieves improvements that are more long lasting and sustainable.”

The ILO Pakistan, under its EU funded ILES project, has to date implemented the SCORE programme successfully in 19 enterprises in the textiles and ready-made garments sector since its pilot in 2018. It has achieved an overall satisfaction rate of 88%.

The ILO’s SCORE programme had to move to a virtual modality in the midst of its implementation phase of the previous batches in March 2020, where due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ILO’s consultants could no longer visit the factories to continue in factory support. However, standing to the challenge, the ILO team through its continued support was not only able to support the enterprises in adapting to the changing needs but also helped them make significant progress in different pilot areas in the factories, which in turn motivated the factories to continue replicating the improvement work achieved in the pilot areas to other parts of the factory.

According to one of the representatives from the senior management of a SCORE alumni factory:
“Although, SCORE progress in our enterprise was hindered by the onset of the pandemic, but with support of the ILO and quickly adopting to the online approaches like using ZOOM for meetings, and by rightly mixing SCORE methodology with the enterprise needs under COVID-19 pandemic, I think we were able to achieve a lot for which all credit goes to the commitment of my Enterprise Improvement Team and continued support by the ILO where needed”.

After the mobilisation event, ILO will follow up with the factories that participated and seek interest from those wishing to sign up for SCORE. These factories will then be further engaged in the process including initial assessment and formal signing of enterprise consent form.