Fair Trade

Campaign 'Public Affairs' launched

EFTA, the European Fair Trade Association, started its new project “Public Affairs: Mobilising action for Fair Trade Public Procurement”.

“Public Affairs” focuses on raising awareness towards European, national and regional authorities about Fair Public Procurement (FPP), but attention is also given to other actors in FPP such as the catering and vending sector.

A European Observatory on Fair Trade and Public Procurement, a Europe-wide platform for those interested in Fair Public Procurement, has been set up and will continuously monitor and analyse laws on Public Procurement, disseminate research and studies on this subject and make available best practices, case studies and tenders.
By 2010, a European Model on FPP will be published, that will guide public authorities on how to include Fair Trade criteria in their tenders and will indicate targets towards purchasing in a Fair manner.

For additional information on Fair Trade and public procurement: go to EFTA's website: www.eftafairtrade.org

Source: http://www.fairtrade-advocacy.org/

Guide to Fair Trade

Finding Fair Trade resources has never been easier! Want to know where to get the latest Fair Trade products? Need organizing material for your business or organization? Discover all the possibilities of Fair Trade in Co-op America’s new full color Guide to Fair Trade! Inside you'll find descriptions of dozens of national and international Fair Trade products.

[Download the pdf]

Does Fair Trade contribute to sustainable development ?

On 16 April, CTA and other partners organised the fifth 'Brussels Development Briefing' - part of a series of discussion meetings on ACP-EU development issues. This briefing focused on the issues: 'Does Fair Trade Contribute to sustainable developement ?'

[More information]

Fears grow that food inflation threatens Fairtrade

The Fairtrade marketing system designed to guarantee fair prices and premiums to farmers could be a casualty of the global boom in commodities prices, campaigners and industry analysts say.

Guardian.co.uk Tuesday March 18 2008

Sustainable Trade

McDonald’s to offer Rainforest Alliance-certified tea in GB

McDonald's quit serving Tetley tea in favour of the environmentally friendly product Rainforest Alliance-certified PG Tips in its 1,200 UK outlets. PG Tips is owned by the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever.

[More information: Organic-Market.info]

Sustainable tourism... a Research Website

Tourism is a commercial endeavor and as with all businesses there are to fundamental goals...survive and make a profit. The sustainability of the environment and profit making do not always make easy bedfellows. This site is designed with the intent to help small and medium sized businesses to make the required profit and still uphold goal of sustainable development.

Properly managed sustainable businesses must be profitable and at the same time save the environment from harm and ideally improve it. This is possible. This small site is not intended to solve all the tensions between business and environmental protection but it is hoped it can help provide useful information and direction.

[University of New Brunswick - Sustainable tourism,... A Research Website]

Trade and development cooperation

Untangling links between trade, poverty and gender

Latin American experience shows women need support to benefit from trade liberalisation

Briefing Paper. Overseas Development Institute, March 2008.
Written by Nicola Jones, ODI Research Fellow (n.jones@odi.org.uk) and Hayley Baker, ODI Research Assistant (h.baker@odi.org.uk).

Key points

To download: http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing/bp38-mar08-trade-poverty-gender.pdf

Local communities and natural products: a manual

Local communities and natural products: a manual for organising natural resource management groups for resource management planning, enterprise development and integration into value chains

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Bhishma Subedi, Hari Dhungana, Deepak Khadka, Sushil Gyawali (ANSAB- Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources) for International Resources Group.

[To download]