On April 29, UNCTAD, together with the Department of Trade Industry and Competition of South Africa met with the main stakeholders at the Action Plan Implementation Kick-off meeting to define the composition of the operational working groups and discuss the next steps for its implementation.
The ESG component in the 2020 assessment of the national reporting infrastructure highlights the gaps in sustainability reporting at the institutional level, the lack of awareness of the SDG agenda among the private sector, as well as poor coordination between government agencies towards advancements in the area of integrated and sustainability reporting.
The gaps identified have been grouped into 3 categories
- Lack of institutional and regulatory framework on enterprise sustainability reporting
- Limitation of human capacity development and lack of institutional cooperation in the area of sustainability reporting
- Lack of high-quality data for corporate and sustainability reporting and mechanism for evaluating companies’ contribution towards implementation of the SDGs.
The action plan responds to the established problem categories by addressing the country-specific constraints and by comprehensively leveraging existing opportunities.
The 3 strategic objectives of the action plan have been developed accordingly:
- Strengthen institutional and regulatory frameworks for sustainability reporting
- Strengthen human capacity and institutional cooperation in the area of SDG/sustainability reporting.
- Strengthen the ability of companies to provide high-quality data in corporate reports and establish mechanisms on evaluating companies’ contribution towards implementation of the SDGs.
