The union has been awarded £190,400 from the Department for International Development’s Awareness Fund to finance a project to make international development a bargaining issue over the next three years.

It was the only union to secure funding from this year’s round of awards by the Awareness Fund, which supported a total of 26 projects with £5.5m.

Commenting on the award, Prospect’s international development co-ordinator Beverley Hall said: “This funding will help us develop a project we undertook last year to raise awareness of the corporate social responsibility agenda.

“This showed that a growing number of our members have a real appetite to change workplace practices on international development. Awareness is spreading of how issues like poverty and hunger link closely with the environment and tackling global warming. People want to get involved and this funding will help immensely.”

The new project will:

• work with employers to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies linked to achieving the United Nations’ eight millennium development goals
• help members and reps encourage employers to develop practical actions like selling Fairtrade products in the workplace, donating old computers or assembling scientific equipment for developing countries
• recruit and train a network of development champions to spread best practice.

By the end of the three years, Prospect aims to engage at least 30 workplaces in new CSR activity. Six pilot schemes will provide models for others to follow; three will support members in using their practical expertise to help projects in developing countries; the other three will build model CSR policies, focusing on the practices of employers and supply chains.

For example, members in the Health and Safety Executive are campaigning for the ethical sourcing of personal protective equipment.