The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) has published the second annual SC Workers' Welfare Progress Report. Covering the period from January 2016 – February 2017, the report highlights areas in which the SC has made progress with regards to workers' welfare, discusses the challenges faced and how these are being overcome, and sets out the key upcoming priorities for the SC's dedicated Workers' Welfare Division (WWD).

"Workers' welfare is of critical importance to the work of the SC," said H.E. Secretary General Hassan Al Thawadi. "It has the potential to create a transformative and truly global social legacy for the first FIFA World Cup to be held in the Middle East."

"Today, we have around 13,000 workers on eight construction sites, with a total of 53 million man-hours worked," added Al Thawadi. "This has inevitably led to an expanded role for our Workers' Welfare Division, which has widened its focus from improving accommodation standards to covering areas of site welfare, ethical recruitment, stakeholder engagement and workers' outreach. This expanded scope was delivered while the team carried out 2,200 hours auditing ethical recruitment issues, 1,400 hours inspecting accommodations and over 1,000 hours inspecting construction sites, blacklisting three contractors and demobilising nine over workers' welfare abuses."

The latest Progress Report discusses a number of milestones the WWD reached during the period covered, including:

· Appointment of Verité for advisory services and ethical recruitment audit training· · · Appointment of Impactt Ltd. as independent third-party monitor

· MoU signing between SC & Building and Woodworkers' International (BWI) trade union, and the launch of joint Health & Safety inspections·

· Launch of a dedicated Workers' Grievance Hotline·

· Launch of an enhanced WWD IT Audit Platform·

· Publication of the Second Edition of the Workers' Welfare Standards (WWS) expanded the team to cater to the growing demands, including additional resources to augment the Compliance & Audit Team

The report also discusses a number of initiatives the WWD is progressing, such as the cooling technology deployed to workers during the summer months, a grievance hotline to anonymously raise issues faced by workers and a partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine designed to monitor workers' nutritional intake and identify prevalent health issues, such as hypertension and diabetes.

A number of instances in which the WWD are having an impact beyond direct SC projects are also highlighted, including Tanareefa Trading & Contracting, for example, which continued to facilitate SC and Impactt. Ltd. inspections despite demobilisation in December 2016 following completion of their scope of work.

In addition, the Progress Report provides details around the two tragic work-related fatalities that occurred on SC projects during the period covered, including the procedural changes that have been introduced in response. The four non-work related fatalities SC contractors reported during the period are also discussed.

Ahead of the report's publication, Khalid Al-Kubaisi, Chief of the SC's Advisory Unit which oversees Workers' Welfare, added: "We have made considerable strides forward in our protection of workers' rights over the last 12 months and I am proud of the team's efforts because they are making our bid promise of leaving a lasting positive social legacy a reality. However, there is still work to be done to ensure our Workers' Welfare Standards continue to have a tangible impact on the ground and we are comprehensive in our attempts to tackle the myriad of issues facing migrant workers across the SC programme."

Workers' Welfare Progress Report – June 2017 (11.87 MB‎)