Safeguarding, ethics and speaking up

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The standards this policy is written against

Our clients are project management units, ministries, multilateral financiers and the international firms that prime their contracts. Each of them tests a supplier against a defined set of instruments before award, and increasingly before shortlisting. This policy is written against those instruments rather than against a general idea of good conduct.

01

Safeguarding

Our work puts people in villages, on farms and in households, often collecting personal data and often in a position of visible authority. Safeguarding means preventing harm to the people that position touches: farmers and their households, community members, our own field staff and enumerators, and above all children and at-risk adults.

What is prohibited, without exception

• Sexual activity with anyone under 18, regardless of the local age of majority or of any claimed consent. Mistaken belief about age is not a defence.
• Exchanging money, employment, goods, services, programme access, farmer registration or data of any kind for sex or any other favour.
• Sexual harassment, exploitation or abuse of a colleague, an associate, a client's staff or a community member.
• Any use of a HAGRO contract, uniform, vehicle or introduction to obtain a personal advantage from someone in a community where we work.

How we work in the field

• Interviews involving a minor or a lone respondent are conducted by two people, never one.
• Consent is explained in the respondent's own language before anything is recorded, and it can be withdrawn.
• Filming or photographing an identifiable person requires separate, explicit consent, recorded at the time. This applies to documentary work as much as to survey work.
• Anyone we place in the field is reference checked, and associate contracts require disclosure of any prior misconduct finding.

Who is accountable

The Safeguarding Focal Point is the Director of Legal, Compliance and Data Protection. The Focal Point reports to the board rather than to the Managing Director, so that a concern about the executive can still be heard. Every person working on a HAGRO assignment is told who the Focal Point is and how to reach them, at contracting and again at field mobilisation.

02

Anti-fraud, bribery and corruption

We operate under Kenya's Bribery Act 2016 and the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act 2003, and under the anti-corruption rules of whichever funder is financing the work. Where the two differ, the stricter applies.

The five prohibited practices

Multilateral financiers define the conduct they will debar a firm for in near identical terms. We adopt those definitions rather than write our own, so that there is no gap between what our contracts prohibit and what a funder investigates.

Corrupt practice

Offering, giving, receiving or soliciting, directly or indirectly, anything of value to influence improperly the actions of another party.

Fraudulent practice

Any act or omission, including a misrepresentation, that knowingly or recklessly misleads or attempts to mislead a party in order to obtain a financial or other benefit, or to avoid an obligation.

Collusive practice

An arrangement between two or more parties designed to achieve an improper purpose, including influencing improperly the actions of another party.

Coercive practice

Impairing or harming, or threatening to impair or harm, directly or indirectly, any party or its property, to influence improperly the actions of that party.

Obstructive practice

Destroying, falsifying, altering or concealing evidence material to an investigation, making false statements to investigators, threatening or intimidating anyone to prevent them disclosing what they know, or acts intended to impede a financier's contractual rights of audit and inspection.

These definitions bind our directors, staff, associates and subcontractors alike. We accept the audit, inspection and access rights that accompany them, and we require the same acceptance in every contract we issue down the chain.

What that means day to day

• No bribes and no kickbacks, offered or accepted, direct or through an agent, in cash or in kind.
• No facilitation payments. This includes small payments to speed up a routine approval, which are illegal in Kenya whatever local practice suggests. If a payment is demanded, the assignment stops and the Director of Legal, Compliance and Data Protection is told the same day.
• No collusion. We do not fix prices, rig bids, allocate markets, or exchange bid information with a competitor. Where we bid in consortium, we say so.
• Gifts and hospitality. Nothing is offered or accepted that could reasonably be seen to influence a procurement decision, and nothing at all while a tender we are bidding is live. Anything above USD 100 or its equivalent is recorded in the gifts register whether accepted or declined.
• Accurate records. No payment without an approved and receipted basis, and no record that misstates what happened.

Our own conflict of interest

HAGRO advises on commodities that HAGRO also trades. We do not think that is a problem to hide; we think it is a risk to control. Every opportunity passes a conflict check before an assignment team is named. Where a trading interest exists in a commodity we would be advising on, the interest is declared in the proposal or we do not bid. No individual sits on an advisory assignment and the trading position in the same commodity at the same time.

The register of interests is held by the Director of Legal, Compliance and Data Protection and reported to the board, not to the executive whose interests it records. How we are organised sets out why the reporting line runs that way.

Before we submit

We check HAGRO and every consortium partner against the financing institution's debarment and sanctions lists before a bid is submitted, and we do not partner with a debarred entity.

03

Speaking up

If something here is being broken, we would rather hear it from you than read it in a report.

Who can raise a concern

Anyone. Staff, associates, subcontractors and their workers, farmers and community members, clients, partners, and members of the public. You do not need proof, and you do not need to be certain. A concern raised honestly and found to be mistaken is not a disciplinary matter.

What to raise

Anything in this policy, plus misuse of personal data, a safety or environmental risk, or a deliverable you believe misrepresents the evidence behind it. That last one matters to us: our work is only worth buying if the numbers in it are real.

How to raise it

• Email speakup@hagrotrading.com, which reaches the Director of Legal, Compliance and Data Protection and no one else.
• Or write, marked private and confidential, to the Director of Legal, Compliance and Data Protection at our registered office.
• If that person is the subject of your concern, or you would simply rather not use them, write to the Chair of the Board at chair@hagrotrading.com, or by letter marked private and confidential to the Chair of the Board at our registered office.

Confidentiality, anonymity and retaliation

You may report anonymously, though it limits what we can investigate and what we can tell you afterwards. Your identity is shared only with those who need it to investigate, and never with the person complained about without your consent unless the law requires it.

Retaliation against anyone who raises a concern in good faith, or who assists an investigation, is itself a disciplinary matter and grounds for terminating an associate or subcontractor.

What happens next

• Acknowledgement within 5 working days where we have a way to reach you.
• An initial assessment, and a decision on whether to investigate, within 15 working days.
• Substantiated safeguarding or fraud findings are reported to the board and, where the work is financed by a client, to that client.
• The outcome is communicated to the person who raised the concern so far as confidentiality allows.

You can always go elsewhere

Nothing in this policy prevents or delays you reporting elsewhere, and you do not need to tell us first. Depending on the matter and who is financing the work, that may be:

• the World Bank Group Integrity Vice Presidency;
• IFAD's Office of Audit and Oversight;
• the African Development Bank's Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption;
• the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, for European Union financed work;
• the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, for United Nations contracts;
• in Kenya, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, or the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

Where a substantiated finding concerns work financed by a client, we report it to that client's integrity mechanism ourselves, whether or not anyone else has.