My name is Mike Dottridge. I describe myself variously as a human rights consultant or a human rights mercenary. For the last 20 odd years I've focused on the world of exploitation, but particularly the human rights of people who are exploited. Although I'm a consultant and I'm nominally independent, a lot of my background stems from becoming the director of an NGO in London called Anti-Slavery International back in the nineties.
Neil Howard (oD): You are very much tapped into the networks that matter within this field. I'm wondering if you could reflect on how you see Alliance 8.7, the central institution emerging around the eighth sustainable development goal. How are you seeing the alliance work and its evolution?
Mike: The one that the ILO is trying to develop on 8.7 looks, I won't say spectacularly unsuccessful, but certainly not to have taken off so far as anything other than the ILO wanting to be the patron of a certain area of work and co-opting others to join it. So the word alliance isn't really right. Maybe even the target isn't right. No, certainly the target isn't right.
