Fostering civil society collaboration to drive climate, environmental, and human rights justice
OECD Watch’s new five-year strategy reflects on how we are evolving to meet a critical moment in corporate accountability, strengthening our role within the global movement for justice, and turning standards into real-world impact.
Communities and workers around the world continue to experience serious harms linked to business activity, even as international business accountability standards gain wider recognition. A key OECD Watch purpose is to ensure these standards lead to meaningful change. The OECD remains a leading voice and platform for multilateral process on responsible business, even despite current insecurity in the geopolitical sphere. Over the coming years, we will focus on strengthening government and multistakeholder collaboration, defending robust accountability frameworks, and amplifying community voices in spaces where decisions are made.
Turning responsible business conduct standards into real-world impact
OECD Watch works to ensure that international standards are not only well-designed, but effectively used. We support civil society organisations to deploy the OECD Guidelines as a practical tool, whether to seek local remedy through complaints, influence corporate behaviour, or push for systemic change.
Our approach combines strategic advice, capacity building, advocacy, and data-driven analysis. By learning from cases and tracking how accountability mechanisms perform in practice, we help strengthen access to justice and improve outcomes for affected communities.
Through trusted relationships with the OECD, governments, and other actors, we help ensure that community experiences inform policy debates, weak implementation is challenged, and responsible business conduct standards continue to advance rather than erode.
Priorities for the years ahead
In the next five years, OECD Watch is committed to strengthening how we work to deliver greater impact. Our strategy outlines how we are:
- Strengthening our global network: We are investing in deeper member collaboration across regions and issues, creating new spaces for collective strategising, and strengthening support for members facing shrinking civic space. This includes expanding regional and thematic working groups and fostering cross-regional learning and solidarity.
- Expanding the impact of our Guidelines expertise: We are strengthening strategic advice on complaints and remedy, deepening engagement on progressive policy engagement at the OECD, and supporting advocacy for stronger binding corporate accountability frameworks.
- Engaging across the corporate accountability ecosystem: We are deepening collaboration with a wider range of actors, including civil society movements and regional networks, trade unions, policymakers, and progressive businesses. By working more closely with others with common aims, we aim to amplify shared priorities, counter regression, and advance more coherent and effective approaches to responsible business conduct.
A new chapter for OECD Watch
As part of this next phase, OECD Watch is preparing to launch as an independent non-profit organisation in 2026. The changes we envision require a new institutional structure and governance. This transition will allow us to explore broader engagement with the OECD, deepen partnerships, and better support our global membership to advance progress in the years ahead.
Stay engaged
You can read the full strategy by downloading it below. If you want to stay connected with the OECD Watch network, follow our work and see how this strategy takes shape in practice by:
- Subscribing to the OECD Watch newsletter
- Following us on LinkedIn
- Joining the conversation on BlueSky
OECD Watch is a global network of civil society organisations working to advance corporate accountability and justice. If your organisation is not yet a member, we invite you to explore joining and contributing to collective impact. Learn more about membership here.
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