Executive summary Forced labour is a systemic global challenge that demands systemic action. Despite decades of reform, compliance initiatives, advocacy and corporate due diligence, nearly 28 million people remain trapped in coercive work, across sectors and borders.1 The causes are well known, yet progress has stalled because the ecosystem itself is fragmented: data is siloed, incentives are misaligned and trust is in short supply. Governments, businesses and civil society each collect important information, but these datasets rarely connect. Worker-generated insights, while among the most immediate sources of evidence, are often the least integrated into broader systems. The result is a vicious cycle: limited visibility weakens accountability, weak accountability erodes trust and mistrust prevents collaboration. Understanding where and why exploitation occurs remains difficult because information is scattered, incentives to share are uneven and collaboration often carries risk.2 Without trusted mechanisms to connect and verify data across stakeholders, visibility stays partial and collective action limited. The Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour was created to break this cycle. Launched in 2025, it provides a trusted, precompetitive infrastructure that enables governments, companies, international organizations and civil society groups to collaborate securely without transferring, centralizing or giving up the sovereignty of underlying data. Built on a federated model, the Partnership links existing systems through shared standards and governance protocols, allowing participants to generate collective intelligence while retaining control of their own data. Federation and agentic AI sit at the core of this architecture, enabling analysis where the data resides and linking signals from various sources, such as worker grievances, labour inspections, recruitment records and migration flows, to uncover risk patterns invisible to traditional traceability. Starting with a Proof of Concept (POC) in Thailand, the Partnership illustrates how federated systems can reveal actionable insights while maintaining data privacy and sovereignty, strengthening coordination among governments, businesses and civil society. This model builds a foundation for collective advantage, with each stakeholder benefiting from greater visibility, efficiency and accountability while the ecosystem as a whole becomes more capable of prevention: –Governments gain clearer visibility to target enforcement and design responsive policy. –Businesses reduce duplication and strengthen compliance while improving risk management, supply chain resilience and brand trust. As regulatory scrutiny, investor expectations and due-diligence obligations intensify, collaboration offers a practical path to meet standards more efficiently and credibly. –Civil society and worker organizations amplify worker voice and shape systemic solutions. –Investors and donors access reliable data to assess impact and direct resources where they are most needed. The solution is scalable by design. Its federated architecture can expand across sectors, regions and institutions without centralizing authority or compromising sovereignty. As participation grows, each new dataset enhances analytical power; stronger insights increase incentives to collaborate; and broader engagement accelerates prevention, thus creating a virtuous cycle of shared intelligence and collaborative action. The next step is collective. Ending forced labour will demand leadership, collaboration and courage equal to the scale of the challenge. Through shared evidence, aligned incentives and responsible innovation, stakeholders can move from isolated initiatives to coordinated impact. By connecting insights securely and acting on shared intelligence, governments, businesses and civil society can make forced labour a preventable risk rather than an enduring reality. As the Partnership moves towards its 2026 development, all stakeholders are invited to participate, learn and act, connecting insights, applying shared intelligence and demonstrating measurable progress together.The Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour uses federation and agentic AI to transform fragmented data into shared intelligence – driving coordinated, privacy- preserving global action against forced labour. Harnessing Data and Intelligence for Collective Advantage: Ending Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains 4

Harnessing Data and Intelligence for Collective Advantage 2026