Harnessing Data and Intelligence for Collective Advantage 2026

Foreword Forced labour remains one of the world’s most persistent and systemic labour rights challenges embedded across global supply chains and societies. Governments, businesses, trade unions and civil society organizations have invested heavily in addressing it, yet progress has stalled because our collective response has not yet been systemic enough. Despite vast effort and regulation, the data remains fragmented, incentives misaligned and trust scarce. None of this is inevitable. A growing community of partners has begun working together under the Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour to address this challenge through a new model of collaboration. The Partnership represents a trusted, precompetitive infrastructure for coordinated global action. It connects insights securely across public, private and civil society systems without requiring any stakeholder to surrender control of their data or sovereignty. Partners collaborate safely, linking existing systems through shared governance and privacy-preserving technologies rather than creating another central database. The Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour seeks to build the conditions for trust, interoperability and shared accountability, demonstrating that secure data collaboration is both technically feasible and institutionally possible. At its core, the Partnership uses a federated data model and agentic AI and provides an intelligence layer that connects fragmented data without requiring it to be moved or centralized. This design makes collaboration technically feasible, ethically sound and rights-based by design. Trust is built through transparency, accountability and inclusion, ensuring that data serves prevention, remedy and accountability. This white paper presents the early findings and lessons from the work. It highlights the persistent barriers that make forced labour difficult to detect and measure, the innovative approaches being developed to connect data safely and effectively, and the opportunities to scale this model globally in the years ahead. The Thailand Proof of Concept (POC) indicates that this model can be implemented safely and effectively, and that participants achieve greater impact when working together rather than alone. Ending forced labour will require leadership, collaboration and courage equal to the scale of the challenge. As the Partnership advances towards its 2026 development phase, we invite all stakeholders to participate, learn and act. By connecting insights securely, applying shared intelligence and demonstrating measurable progress, we can make forced labour a preventable risk rather than an enduring reality. Maroun Kairouz Managing Director, World Economic Forum John F. Schultz Executive Vice-President, Chief Operating and Legal Officer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Harnessing Data and Intelligence for Collective Advantage: Ending Forced Labour in Global Supply ChainsJanuary 2026 Harnessing Data and Intelligence for Collective Advantage: Ending Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains 33