Apr 7, 2020

To our stakeholders:

I am pleased to confirm that TAGHEER Mosbat reaffirms its support of the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption.

In this annual Communication on Progress, we describe our actions to continually improve the integration of the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture and daily operations. We also commit to share this information with our stakeholders using our primary channels of communication. We are committed to making the UN Global Compact and its principles part of the strategy, culture and day-to-day operations of our company, and to engaging in collaborative projects which advance the broader development goals of the United Nations, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals. We are happy to sharing this statement of expression for continued support for the UN Global Compact, disclosure of code of conduct and anti-corruption policy, and a statement of outcomes to express the degree to which performance indicators were met.

Sincerely yours,


Syed Kamal

Founder; TAGHEER Mosbat

CODE OF CONDUCT – TAGHEER

Definition:

A code of conduct defines TAGHEER as a company doing business with others as well as a team of employees interacting with each other on a day-to-day basis. It reflects our daily operations, core values and our company culture. The code binds us to adhere to defined ethical principles including workplace behavior and respect for all people we interact with and particularly for our team to adhere to their job description, commitment to TAGHEER as an organization and proper use of TAGHEER assets including computers/laptops, internet and email usage.

Introduction:

TAGHEER is engaged in business since April 2018 with its main office in Kabul, regional presence and staff in Herat, Mazar, Kandahar, and Nangarhar as well as a window office in Istanbul – Turkey, where in all we support the business and development community for market research, evaluations, and capacity development as well as strategic management. TAGHEER aspires to create a true picture of the Afghan communities for the development aid spent and to better allocate funds for future programming.

In all our contracts and engagements with local and international clients, We are strongly committed to observe the highest ethical and moral standards for the entire program cycle. This Code of Conduct sets out a set of simple principles and behaviours that serve us a guide and for our team to doing business. Standard elements of good business practices are followed and applied. The Code of Conduct serves us a general guide and we ensure adherence/compliance to donor/client procedures for their fair code to be followed. In other words, we familiarize ourselves and their sub-contractors with Our Code of Conduct and the code procedures requested for compliance by our donors and clients.

Adhering Principles:

TAGHEER believes in an accountable and transparent business with its clients and a business model based on mutual respect for co-workers both female and male. However, it is obvious that Afghanistan is still young to catch up with global best practices; however, TAGHEER as a responsible business take extra measures to meaning and practicing the below codes and principles for us to ethical and morally responsible.

1. We act with Professionalism and integrity –
- We are honest and realistic about capacity and capability statement while bidding on projects.
- We believe in quality service and are proud to create and disseminate useful, actionable information for better decision making and strategic planning.
- We imply our donors/clients codes on our suppliers and subcontractors to ensure that we meet the principles of their codes of conduct and to demonstrate standards when required.
- We work in collaboration with our clients for building a professional business relationships
- We understand the value of Corporate Social Responsibility than business gains and stay committed to it.

3. We are accountable –
- We apply pricing structures that align payments to results and deliverables.
- Our team reflects regularly on implementation progress
- We share our financials and bank statements with our clients for clarity/transparency
- We stay accountable for our contract responsibilities and work delivery.
- We assist private and public sector organizations to plan strategically and increase their effectiveness.
- We are sincere and transparent in our work and with our clients.
- We are comfortable having difficult conversations to ensure accountability.
- We adhere to the data confidentiality of clients and stakeholders including project beneficiaries.
- We believe in three principles to be considered in our work: interaction, understanding, and flexibility.

4. We are socially responsible –
- We Prove to Improve and Learn. We understand that our proven reports backed by solid field data will provide an opportunity to clients for improving their work and will serve a learning platform for them to strategize future programming.
- We apply a strong emphasis on building local capacity by seeking ways to develop local markets and institutions whenever time and budget allow us.
- We try to reach and cover all fragile and conflict affected districts/communities in Afghanistan to ensure they remain part of the development agenda in Afghanistan.
- We believe in differences of opinion, value open talk and encourage professional growth.
- We learn from our work and while working with the greater community.
- We keep the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF) as a guiding document for TAGHEER to the development and inclusivity of entire Afghanistan.
- Our work helps others perform their jobs better.
- We work with clients and the Afghan community and work for them.
- We provide Internships to university graduates and contribute to job creation in Afghanistan.

5. We Observe the International Labour Code –
- We prohibit any use of forced, bonded, and involuntary labour retention.
- We strictly prohibit the use of child labour.
- We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in hiring and employment practices on the ground of race, colour, religion, gender, and ethnicity.
- We support and respect the protection of human rights and those who are on board with us as employees.
- We ensure that our staff operate in a safe and healthy workplace environment
- We create and maintain an environment that treats all employees with dignity and respect and do not use any threats of violence, sexual exploitation or abuse (verbal or psychological).
6. We are Environmental friendly –
- We operate an effective environmental policy to protect the environment.
- We are part of the initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility and encourage the use of environmental friendly technologies.
- We go green and avoid paper print to the extent possible and lobby with our clients to go green.
- We, wherever possible support a precautionary approach to environmental matters, undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility and encourage the diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies implementing sound life-cycle practices
- We try to reduce and eliminate the extra use of all types of energy and water to avoid wastage of natural resources.

7. Anti-corruption and Bribery –
a) We adhere to the highest standards of moral and ethical conduct, including extortion, fraud, and bribery.
b) We disclose any situation that may appear as a conflict of interest.
c) We apply a zero tolerance approach to corruption and fraud, with risk reporting system.

We have created a suggestions box at our office entrance, which is only opened by the TAGHEER CEO and Founder every 15 days to listen to staff opinion, challenges and improvement thoughts.

In all our evaluation works, considering the opinion of disabled groups is a must for TAGHEER.

Reporting on the needs and priorities of the disabled groups has been the core of TAGHEER feasibility studies and evaluations.

We regularly perform staff performance reviews for staff promotion, rewards, and future planning.

Duty of Care – Statement

Our duty of Care reflects our daily operations and our company culture. It binds us to adhere to defined ethical principles including workplace behavior and respect for all people we interact with and particularly for our team to adhere to their job description, commitment to TAGHEER as an organization and proper use of TAGHEER and client’s assets including computers/laptops, internet and email usage.

TAGHEER is engaged in business since April 2018 with its main office in Kabul, regional presence and staff in Herat, Mazar, Kandahar, and Nangarhar as well as a window office in Istanbul – Turkey, where in all we support the business and development community for market research, evaluations, and capacity development as well as strategic management. TAGHEER aspires to create a true picture of the Afghan communities for the development aid spent and to better allocate funds for future programming.

In all our contracts and engagements with local and international clients, We are strongly committed to observe the highest ethical and moral standards as a Code of Conduct, which serves us a general guide and we ensure adherence/compliance to donor/client procedures for their fair code to be followed.

TAGHEER believes in an accountable and transparent business with its clients and a business model based on mutual respect for co-workers both female and male. However, it is obvious that Afghanistan is still young to catch up with global best practices; however, TAGHEER as a responsible business take extra measures to meaning and practicing the below duties as an ethically responsible business.

- Our team reflects regularly on implementation progress
- We stay accountable for our contract responsibilities and work delivery.
- We adhere to the data confidentiality of clients and stakeholders including project beneficiaries.
- We try to reach and cover all fragile and conflict affected districts/communities in Afghanistan to ensure they remain part of the development agenda in Afghanistan.
- We keep the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF) as a guiding document for TAGHEER to the development and inclusivity of entire Afghanistan.
- We prohibit any use of forced, bonded, and involuntary labor retention.
- We strictly prohibit the use of child labor.
- We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in hiring and employment practices on the ground of race, color, religion, gender, and ethnicity.
- We support and respect the protection of human rights and those who are on board with us as employees.
- We ensure that our staff operate in a safe and healthy workplace environment
- We create and maintain an environment that treats all employees with dignity and respect and do not use any threats of violence, sexual exploitation or abuse (verbal or psychological)
- We take full responsibility for the losses made to and by our staff on client assignments and do not put any insurance responsibility on clients.

We are implementing the duty of care policy developed this year.

We are planning for a pension plan for our employees.

We have adapted an open door policy in TAGHEER and created a suggestion box for employees to reach out to top management and to express their opinion, problems, and future improvement thoughts.

In 2019, we worked with around 90 full and part time staff across Afghanistan with over 40 being female.
Nothing on labor laws violation have been reported so far in TAGHEER, although we keep a suggestion box for employees.
Around 4 Interns are promoted as permanent staff in TAGHEER during the reporting year.

ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY POLICY

TAGHEER Mosbat as a responsible business believes in contributing to safe environment.
TAGHEER is committed to reducing negative environmental impact including double page print policy and using online platform for proposals submission. We encouraging our clients and suppliers to do the same, as it is a matter of delivering on our duty of care towards society and future generations.

Our policy is to:

 Minimize waste and recycle supplies as much as possible.
 Minimize energy and water usage in our office and kitchen in order to conserve supplies
 Operate and maintain company vehicles (where appropriate) with due regard to environmental issues as far as reasonably practical and encourage the use of alternative means of transport and car sharing as appropriate.
 Apply the principles of continuous improvement in respect to air, water, noise and light pollution from our premises and reduce any impacts from our operations on the environment and local community.
 Assess the environmental impact of any new processes or products we intend to introduce in advance.
 Lessen the use of paper as much as possible.
 Be extra vigilant with fuel (coal, oil, wood, gas) use in the winter.

We recite the environmental friendly policy loud in our monthly meetings.

We implemented the policy in our office fully and have encouraged our clients / suppliers to adapt environment friendly attitude.

We have dedicated one office staff to as a clutter officer to ensure compliance with our policy.

We have fire alarm in our building and have observed staff quickly assembling when the alarm goes ON

Our staff are environmental friendly as they understand the management focus to support safe and clean environment

We are planning to do a social project called "anti-littering" in one of nearby districts in Kabul in 2020

ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY

Defining Corruption:

Corruption is defined as the abuse of delegated authority and power for gain. It includes practices such as bribery, extortion, fraud, misleading referrals, collusion and money laundering. It also includes an offer or receipt of any gift, fee, reward, or other advantage to or from any person as an inducement for a dishonest act or a breach of trust in the conduct of the organization’s activities.

Introduction:

Discussions that TAGHEER is linked to corruption can be damaging our reputation and it can demotivate the TAGHEER staff and demoralize them. It can also undermine the trust and support of beneficiaries, partners, our clients and the donor community. We understand that the act of corruption could pose legal risks to TAGHEER and its affiliated team of employees, consultants and partners and to avoid; We act sooner than later to express our honesty and transparency.

This policy supports our existing policies and standards and the Code of Conduct to reinforcing our commitment as a responsible entity, where any corrupt act is never acceptable. This policy further clarifies our standards to preventing corruption and provides a common vision to managing and avoiding corrupt acts across our portfolio.

Policy Declaration:

TAGHEER believes in an accountable and transparent business with its clients. However, it is obvious that Afghanistan’s reputation on corruption has been on the hit list of media for the past few years. Hence, it is mandatory for TAGHEER as a responsible business to take extra measures to avoiding any corruption leaks.

- We in our engagements for partnership will ensure that we implement this policy either by referencing it directly, or by adopting necessary procedures in accordance with our clients’ needs.

- In this effort, TAGHEER mandates its employees, consultants, and business partners to comply with all applicable laws within Afghanistan. No one of the above associated with TAGHEER or acting on behalf of TAGHEER shall pay a bribe or accept a bribe in conjunction with any aspect of our activities. However, such prohibited payments can be considered only if there is a life or personal safety threat in which case these instants must be immediately reported to management for information and records purposes.

- Our adherence to ensure above includes the Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Policy, other Afghan applicable laws and regulations, as well as the applicable laws required by TAGHEER clients/donors including US applicable laws, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), U.S. laws prohibiting private corruption, the Bribery Act of the United Kingdom and similar anti-corruption laws of other countries (together, the “Global Anti-Corruption Laws”). Briefly, the Global Anti-Corruption Laws make it a criminal offense for our company, employees, and affiliates to offer, pay or give gifts to any government official, political party, official of a political party or candidate (or to an intermediary for payment to any of the foregoing), for the purpose of influencing any act or decision designed to obtain or retain business, or to direct business to TAGHEER, or to make any payment or give any benefit to an employee or agent of a private company to induce that person to breach his or her responsibilities within their TOR.

- To this end, we further ensure compliance with the Global Anti-Corruption Laws. It is our core principle to determine and avoid the involvement of government officials, political parties into any of our business activities. Government official could be on duty officers actively working for Government of Afghanistan and in any way, those who could influence business decisions. If we find any relationship of such officials with any of the TAGHEER’s owners and management team, we express the conflict of interest as a responsibility measure.

- TAGHEER will perform a corruption risk assessment for its projects and partnerships and ensure that our employees, consultants, and partners are aware of the Anti-corruption Policy and will encourage them for reporting corruption through a “whistleblower” policy to report evidence of misconduct including corruption in an effort to develop and adapt to a corruption response plan documenting how such mishaps will be investigated, reported and closed.

- Employees of TAGHEER and Associates on behalf who commit a corrupt act, fail to report knowledge of corruption or fail to manage the risk of corruption will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.

- The Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Policy and Global Anti-Corruption Laws also prohibit corrupt payments to anyone while “knowing” that all or part of the payment will be passed on to an official.

Signed by: Syed Kamal
Co-Founder TAGHEER
July, 2018

We have reported grievance mechanism two times during the reporting year, where we raised the issues of corruption associated with proposal evaluation. One such complain was made even against a UN body in Afghanistan.

Awareness raising of taking and giving no bribe is part of DNA and we discuss this seriously and regularly with our staff.

Each one of our employees have read and signed the organisation policy on Anti-corruption.

We deal with corruption cases based on Anti-corruption policy

We have planned our external audit for the year 2019 in the month of May, 2020. It was planned for March, however, due to COVID-19 spread, the audit was postponed until May, this year.