Fair Trade and Citizenship

For decades, world trade has favored unequal development that leads to growing poverty in the world. To change this reality, FDH and its partners lead sustainable development projects to fight together against poverty. By encouraging the involvement of local actors in identifying needs, and planning and realizing projects, we want to effectively fight exclusion and contribute to social and political change, through the emergence of an active citizenship.

Today, almost 70% of people in the South, along with many in western countries, live in situations of marginalization. Forced to live in deplorable conditions, millions of families have put in place economic activities (small businesses, craft work, and recycling), resulting in a proliferation of individual and collective ideas and ingenuity that allow to increase their income level in order to survive.

In spite of the large diversity of contexts where our African, Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean partners live and work, we have observed a strong convergence in the analysis and practice of development. Together, we have led an ongoing discussion on the role that this economy can play in sustainable development at the level of individuals, social organizations, communities, and local and international public policy.

Like FDH, our partners recognize the need not to reduce labor to purely economic terms, and to reject a separation between the economic, the political, and the social aspects of labor.

Make a Living and Becoming an Active Citizen
In a global context of income and employment instability, projects supporting the organization of small farmers and urban micro-entrepreneurs have taken off, to respond to the needs of survival. This response at the economic level is one of the projects’ virtues, but there is also the social and political dimension that aims for the recognition and defense of basic rights that apply to all citizens.

For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen a serious economic crisis and a permanent climate of insecurity since 1996, FDDH works alongside APEF in its work with low-income women. Thanks to its training program and the establishment of a system of micro-credits, the women build and diversify their businesses (small general stores, fabric dying, and embroidery). Indeed, this informal sector of the economy has become essential for allowing the population to escape from poverty. Mobilizing after their husbands lost their jobs, these women had to take charge of supporting their families. This economic fight was for them an opportunity to break with the marginalization they had been used to and to obtain the rights that come with the positions of responsibility that they have assumed. A new distribution of jobs has appeared in the families, and they are now accepted as economic actors by local authorities. Along with these essential openings for the survival of hundreds of families, members of APEF have chosen to make a permanent contribution to the construction of peace in their region, by promoting integration and dialogue between women of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

In Bolivia, during the 1980s, thousands of farmers experienced intense poverty due to a lack of arable land and a decrease in crop prices. They thought their only recourse was to the slums of the big cities or to the illegal farming of coca. To fight against these negative dynamics, peasant organizations, including our partner, CORACA-PROTAL, decided to rebuild communities on unoccupied, farmable land, in order to revive agricultural production and allow families to obtain economic resources and social recognition.
After having cultivated the land, and built housing, schools, and water access, these at-risk families succeeded in making sustainable use of their resources. Today, they have revived production of “locoto” (a local pepper) and honey, while managing all steps of the process, from production to distribution. These families, of Quechua and Aymara origin, have also decided to develop a local alternative tourism industry, allowing tourists to get to know and appreciate their culture and their history.

These two concrete examples of sustainable responses to structural and cyclical needs cannot be understood in terms of economic impact alone. They contribute to moving past these challenges collectively, by promoting collective and individual interests, developing the organizational capacity of marginalized populations, and encouraging co-responsibility.

Education: A Key Factor in Sustainable Development
In all projects supported by FDH, we see individuals as being ready to learn and promote education that instills self-confidence (identity, values, cultural and ethnic references, and women’s rights), develops technical and professional skills (literacy, planning, management, production, and savings and loan), and increases understanding of the decision-making mechanisms (public policy, crop prices, and the law)

In India, where the Dalits, or Untouchables, bear discrimination that keeps them in a state of poverty and fear, many of them have formed FEDINA, a partner organization of FDH. Thanks to awareness-raising and education (literacy, workers’ rights, and banking), thousands of individuals are now conscious of their social, economic, political, and human rights, as well as the legitimacy of defending these rights at the individual and collective levels. Through their common fight for land access, natural resources, and education, the Dalits have seen their economic situation improve and, above all, have discovered an individual and group self-confidence.

Along with the impact in terms of citizenship and social integration, education allows the Dalits, whose are often under-educated and have little technological knowledge, to have access to tools that increase their economic production, distribution, and competitiveness.

In 1996, the largest wave of privatization that Peru had ever experienced created unemployment for thousands of workers in Lima. FDH and its partners, CENCA, thus decided to build a community center to help these workers get back on their feet, by starting micro-enterprises (taxi-bicycles, clothing workshops, and traveling sales carts). They were given practical and theoretical training, in the areas of management, negotiation, collective purchasing of raw materials, product value, and social organization. Through these measures, 2200 small business that provide for the livelihoods of over 22 000 people, have already been started and have organized into business associations.

Widen the Citizenship Space to Promote new Public Policy
In a global context where decision-making (WTO and IMF) and the terms of trade are limited to a small number of individuals, solving problems only at the local scale does not make sense to bring about a true long-term development.

Faced with this challenge, we have decided, along with our partners, to promote the participation of local economic actors in public discussion, to advance democracy, and to finally obtain more favorable local, regional, national, and international policies.

In Indonesia, our partner, KPA, focuses its work on land access and works on organization, production, and product distribution for farmers. Along with this grassroots work, their lobby work and dialogue with national authorities, have already led to a decree on agrarian reform and natural resource management, signed in 2002. This is an important victory for the 61% of Indonesians living in rural areas, who live in poverty because of frequent violations of their land rights.

For almost forty years, FDH supports populations in difficult situations that make up our partner organizations, in order to promote independence, increased autonomy over their own future, and long-lasting improvement in their quality of life. In spite of often very difficult social, economic, and political contexts, our partners have succeeded in bringing about active citizenship through true individual and collective change, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Sabine Benjamin

APEF: Association of Women Entrepreneurs
CORACA PROTAL: Rural Association of Farmers and Animal-Breeders
FEDINA/RGAS: Social Action Group Network
CENCA: Center for Business Development and Promotion
LPA: Consortium for Agrarian Reform