Abstract: On 15 -16 of June, WFTO-Europe had the pleasure to attend the European Development Days (EDD16), where several key policy-makers (for example the Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations and Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission) debated on how to eradicate poverty and make the world a more inclusive as well as peaceful place through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This special 10-year anniversary edition was focused, indeed, on the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and was organised around ‘5Ps’: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership.
On this occasion, WFTO-Europe and WFTO in partnership with Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) and Fairtrade International led a workshop on the revision of the EU Aid for Trade Strategy which is expected at the end of 2016. In particular, experts but also civil society representatives had the opportunity to discuss how the Aid for Trade strategy can contribute to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and what investments are needed to make supply chains more sustainable.
The main points that emerged from the debate are:
- Aid to developing countries should first include capacity-building ;
- Corruption is still a major issue to be tackled and there is a need of more accountability in corporations;
- Reduce intermediaries to become more competitive;
- More and better collaboration between the private and public sectors could solve the problem of corruption and intermediaries;
- Improvement of infrastructure (roads, communications, transport);
- Promote trade at the local-regional level;
- Need of Aid to prepare the framework: transform the activities into efficient business models thanks to financial help;
- More action and commitment from European Institutions ;
- Make Fair Trade model the standard, not the exception ;
- More coordination between small producers within organisations.
For more info check also the Internal Bulletin #67 of June of FTAO (login required).
