Approach & Values

The Crop Trust is committed to ensuring transparency in its governance, fiduciary responsibility, staff employment and management practices as well as its overall business operations. This page provides information on these areas, with links to documents providing further detail.

The Crop Trust adheres to and promotes the values of integrity, accountability, professionalism, human rights, environmental responsibilities, social justice, equity and respect for diversity, as set forth in UN and other international norms, conventions, treaties and agreements.

Members of the organization are individually and collectively committed to putting these values into practice. As an organization based in partnerships, we fundamentally value our partners and their work and we will ensure to the best of our abilities that they too abide by the principles set out herewith. 

These values and ethical principles include the following major areas:

Integrity

• We conduct business and engage with our partners, donors and our staff in a way that is honest, transparent and ethical. 
• We do not tolerate, and we take actions to prevent, all forms of corruption, fraud, money laundering, misappropriation of funds, conflict of interest, nepotism and other corrupt or fraudulent financial practices. 
• We undertake efforts to ensure that any funding we receive or provide to partners is not used in violation of UN and other international conventions and treaties and we expect the same of our partners. 
• We do not tolerate unethical or dishonest behavior and have policies and procedures in place to ensure prompt reporting and disciplinary measures if such behavior presents itself. Our whistleblower policy provides a safe vehicle for staff to report to suspected cases of misconduct without fear of retaliation. 

Accountability

• We hold ourselves and our partners accountable to the highest level of ethical behavior and ensure that our policies and contracts clearly articulate these expectations. 
• We ensure transparency in all of our financial and operational processes to make the Crop Trust a reliable partner and ensure its accountability. This includes, for example, adhering to internationally recognized principles for accounting, regular and timely financial and technical reports, audited financial statements, regular and transparent reporting to donors, fair and transparent procurement policies and procedures and managing funds with due regard to economy and efficiency.
• We hold ourselves accountable to the commitments we make with our staff, our partners and our donors, and strive to recognize the valuable contribution of our partners in all of our communications.

Professionalism and Excellence

• We pursue excellence and uphold the highest standards of professionalism across the organization.
• We aim to employ talented, experienced, innovative and dedicated professionals through competitive recruitment processes.
• Our work is guided by the best available science, evidence and technical expertise.
• We continuously innovate and invest in developing our staff to provide them with the skills to respond to evolving requirements and priorities in our changing world.

Environmental Responsibility

• We respect our environment and strive to minimize any negative environmental impact of our business operations.
• We adopt policies and practices and demonstrate behaviors that minimize the environmental impact of our operations.
• We support the Paris Agreement, enacted in 2016, which commits all parties to adhere to nationally determined long-term strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Human Rights, Social Justice, Equity and Respect for Diversity

• We value the diversity, culture and perspectives of our staff and partners.
• We treat all people with dignity, respect and fairness.
• We condemn and do not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, bullying and/or abuse of power. We encourage staff to report such behaviors and have policies and procedures in place to appropriately deal with such actions; we expect the same of our partners.
• We screen our partners to ensure that they comply with the fundamental conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other relevant international treaties to ensure that prospective partners and suppliers do not contribute to or are otherwise complicit in any human rights abuses, compulsory or child labor, discrimination of any form, gender-based violence, corruption and terrorist financing or other sanctionable financial irregularities.
• We are committed to upholding the rights of persons with disabilities and have policies in place to protect against discrimination. We hold our partners to the same expectation.
• We are committed to advancing the agenda of achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.