In this Issue:
- WFTO-Europe FT Marathon
- Minutes of 2014 WFTO AGM
- Outcome of the call to financially support the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO)
- All “Good Countries” have FTT, but who’s the Fairest of them all?
- Standing out for Climate Action
- The Second European Citizens Summit
- Vote4FairTrade
- Member of the month
And More..!
Agenda
– 1-11 October: Belgian Fair Trade Week
– 7–8 October: Fair Trade Marathon (FTAO)
– 7 October: WFTO-Europe Fair Trade debate
– 7 October: World Day for Decent Work
– 16 October: World Food Day
– 17October: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
– 17-19 October: WFTO-Asia Conference & AGM
-31 October: Registration deadline for the Fair Trade Finest Programme
– 12-13 November: WFTO-Africa AGM
– 11-14 February: BIOFACH
Let us know about your events!
Main Articles
WFTO-Europe FT Marathon
From the 7th to the 9th of October, WFTO-Europe will be involved in several activities related to Fair Trade, in the framework of the Vote4FT campaign and the Fair Trade week in Brussels. Please find below a list of these events:
Phot credit: FTAO
1. 
the capacity building session and Fair Trade breakfast organised by the FTAO on the 7th and 8th of October. The main aim of the capacity building session is to share tools on how to lobby MEPs and national governments. During these days, a meeting of the EU Fair Trade advocacy network will also take place in order to help participants familiarise with the two key EU advocacy priorities of the moment: “European Strategy for Fair Trade” and “Power in supply chains” as well as to plan joint FT movement advocacy and campaigning work in 2015-2017. The FT Breakfast at the EP, and the following bilateral meetings with Permanent Representations (Perm Reps), will aim at connecting National FT actors with MEP, and establish links with them. On the 8th of October a meeting amongst World shop associations and FTAO will also take place in order to discuss how to best create working-level relationships between FTAO and world shop associations, and how to best support each other in advocating and camapaigning for Fair Trade, and fairer trade in the coming years. If you are interested in participating in this world shop association meeting, please do not hesitate to send an email to Francesca Giubilo (coordination@wfto-europe.org) and Chiara Gronchi (advocacy@fairtrade-advocacy.org).
2. 
Taking advantage of the high participation of national FT actors in the capacity building session and EU FT advocacy network, on the 7th of October WFTO-Europe will organise the debate “Let’s build together the Fair Trade puzzle”, as part of the activities funded by the Belgian Technical Cooperation within the Fair Trade Week. In this occasion, students and young people will be invited to discuss about Fair Trade with professionals of the sector. After a 30-minute general presentation of the different national actors and WFTO-Europe, participants will be encouraged to choose one group (led by national FT actors) to deepen one of the following topics:
1) How to deal with North Fair Trade products?
2) Should be fair trade sold in supermarket?
3) How can we convince citizens to buy Fair Trade? How can Fair Trade be promoted at local level?
4) Should the governments/international institutions keep their hands off fair trade or should them promote Fair Trade? What is our role on it?
A wrap up session will then close the debate and identify concrete actions to promote Fair trade at local level.
Photo credit: Skyview Acres
3.
Last but not least, the WFTO-Europe face-to-face Board meeting will take place on the 8th (from 2pm to 6pm) and 9th of October (from 9am to 5pm). The six Board members will go through a very intense and full agenda, mainly focused on the future of WFTO-Europe and the way ahead. The first outcome of the survey on WFTO-Europe communication with its members and the working plan 2014-2015 will be at the heart of the discussion as well as the FTT new guidelines, the 7th Board member and the new division of responsibilities amongst the Board members.
WFTO-Europe will try to give you constant update on the above meetings, so please stay tuned and check our website and social media to follow our marathon. For any further information regarding one of more of these events, please contact: project@wfto-europe.org .
Minutes of 2014 WFTO AGM
Dear members,
We are happy to inform you that WFTO has successfully held its 2014 AGM by electronic voting. After a first round last year in the October EGM, this year’s AGM allowed again all our eligible members to participate without any financial cost. The topics in the agenda were kept to the legally required documents.
Below you can find the draft minutes and voting results. All proposed resolutions were approved.
The WFTO Board Governance Task Force will now analyse these results and, if necessary, send the Board any relevant recommendation.
Thank you for participating.
Draft Minutes 2014 AGM (Virtual)
Outcome of the call to financially support the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO)
Photo credit: FTAO
Dear members,
Below you can find the result of the call launched one month ago concerning the financial support to the FTAO.
Thanks a lot to all of you who have answered the call and showed support to the FTAO.
How to contribute to the FTAO, October 2014
All “Good Countries” have FTT, but who’s the Fairest of them all?
The Good Country Index announced at the TED Salon in Berlin, measures how much each of 125 countries contributes to the planet. With Ireland leading the table it turns out that all top ten countries are nations where a Fair Trade Town campaign is running. Is this a coincidence?
On 7 September however, Oudenaarde, Belgium declared as the 154th Fair Trade Town in Flanders making half of all Flemish municipalities a Fair Trade Town and Flanders the global leader for fair trade in terms of the proportion of the population covered. Out of a total of 308 municipalities 154 are now Fair Trade Towns with an additional 74 towns working towards gaining status. In Flanders over 4¼ million inhabitants now live in a Fair Trade Town. Does this make Flanders the Fairest of them all?
Photo credit: The Good Country Index
The Flemish campaign added a 6th goal to the original five founding goals which was aimed at promoting local and sustainable consumption. Congratulations Flanders on this tremendous achievement and well done to all involved!
For further information contact Bruce Crowther the International Fair Trade Towns Ambassador at brucecrowther300@gmail.com
Bruce Crowther
International Fair Trade Towns Ambassador
The FIG Tree, Garstang, UK
Standing out for Climate Action
The Fair Trade movement has always recognised the importance of the environmental impact of humans’ activities. This is stressed in one of the 10 Fair Trade Principles by which WFTO makes sure that its member organisations are following environmental standards in their day to day work.
According to Principle Ten:
Photo credit: lobOlmo
“Organizations which produce Fair Trade products maximize the use of raw materials from sustainably managed sources in their ranges, buying locally when possible. They use production technologies that seek to reduce energy consumption and where possible use renewable energy technologies that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. They seek to minimize the impact of their waste stream on the environment. Fair Trade agricultural commodity producers minimize their environmental impacts, by using organic or low pesticide use production methods wherever possible.
Buyers and importers of Fair Trade products give priority to buying products made from raw materials that originate from sustainably managed sources, and have the least overall impact on the environment.
All organizations use recycled or easily biodegradable materials for packing to the extent possible, and goods are dispatched by sea wherever possible”.
Environmental issues and the consequences of Climate Change are, undoubtedly, one of the biggest challenges of our era.
The last 19th of August was Earth Overshoot Day, the day when humanity exhausted all the natural resources available for the year, in other words, humanity’s annual demand on the natural world has exceeded what the Earth can renew in a year since the 1970s (WWF).
Climate Change has been in the spotlight for the past two weeks. People’s Climate March and the UN Climate Summit 2014 caught citizens ‘and politicians’ attention on the issue and raised the urgency for a call to action. It was the first time the world has seen such a large mobilisation for this important issue. Climate Change is a global problem, and regional measures are therefore not enough, what is needed are global solutions and fast actions before irreversible consequence can lead to catastrophic outcomes such as humane extinction.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, developing countries are and will remain the most affected by the consequences that Climate Change has on our planet, experiencing, among others, severe droughts in drier areas, and stronger cyclones and unpredictable rains in tropical regions (John Vidal, The Guardian).
The last 10th of September during the seminar “Climate change & the post 2015 development framework: Developing country perspectives” organised by ODI and CDKN different actors participated in the debate. According to Andrew Scott, Research Fellow, Climate and Environment, ODI, Climate Change is not only an environmental issue. Climate change and development are intrinsically linked. The actions that we take to address Climate Change are intimately connected with development processes, and the actions we take to achieve development objectives have impact on the actions we take to reach Climate Change goals. So far, most of the debate about climate change in the SDGs framework has taken place in Europe and North America. We need an opportunity for the debate to take place in developing countries and to get the perspective of developing countries into the debate.
“It’s a fundamental injustice that the world’s poorest people are paying for a climate crisis that they didn’t cause” – ODI Executive Director Kevin Watkins on CNBC Africa: http://www.cnbcafrica.com/video/?bctid=3800438928001
Politics is not responding in the way we want, and unfortunately, people who maintain the power have impact on people who don’t have any. Politicians instead are still obsessed with economic growth, which seems not to be the right solution to the problem. This is why individual taking responsibility is the first step towards a more sustainable world. Each citizen of the world can really make a difference, not only changing his/her daily habits into a more environmentally friendly ones, but also participating, raising the voice, and campaigning to make themselves heard. Don’t wait tomorrow, start being active NOW!
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world, is either a madman or an economist.” (Kenneth Boulding, Economics professor)
The Second European Citizens Summit
“Dreaming alone is dreaming, dreaming together is reality”.
(Participant from Chile at the European Citizens Summit)
Photo credit: : DEEP CONCORD DARE Forum
The last 23rd and 24th of September WFTO-Europe took part in the Second European Citizens Summit in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.
The event was a great opportunity to see how many young people are concerned about the current situation in Europe and put their intelligence and enthusiasm in drafting some good ideas and proposals for MEPs in order to build a fair, inclusive, transparent and sustainable Europe.
Several speeches given by different actors (NGOs, MEPs, students and citizens) contributed in making this event informative and inspiring.
During the workshop on Wealth and Distribution an interesting discussion took place. The most important points can be summarised below:
– We are not able to fight poverty if we don’t address the issue of inequality. Inequality is not only about income but it also concerns access to resources and services.
– 85 people in the world own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion
– There is an unacceptable level of tax evasion
– Precarious work is increasing
On behalf of the Fair Trade movement, Sergi Corbalán from Fair Trade Advocacy Office participated in the workshop’s debate. Sergi underlined how the current agenda is not serving small farmers in the South, and that equal distribution of the resources should be related to equal distribution of politic and economic power.
Read the press release of the European Citizens Summit here.
“Democracy is an ongoing fight, you don’t have it, you have to do it.” (Susan George)
News from the office
WFTO-Europe welcomes Nina Spooren who has started working as a volunteer in our office in Brussels.
News from the Board
The minutes of the last Board meetings held on Skype, the 15th of July and 1st of August 2014, are now available on the website.
Login here in order to Access the Board minutes.
The next face-to-face Board meeting will take place on the 8th and 9th of October 2014 in Brussels.
Vote4FT Testimonials
Testimonial: Chandra Prasad Kachhipati, Sana Hastakala, Nepal
Southern producer, Chandra Prasad Kachhipati from Nepal speaking to European decision makers. “When I see my producers growing and becoming entrepreneurs, giving work to many other artisans who need work. That gives me satisfaction”.
Member of the Month
Artisans du Monde
? About us
Artisans du Monde is a network of 150 Fairtrade shops in France which sell food and handicraft products.
This year, Artisans du Monde celebrates its 40 years’ anniversary. The organization defends a militant vision of Fairtrade through the sale of Fairtrade products but also by educating young people to Fairtrade values and by leading advocacy actions to change the international trade rules.
The organization turnover was equal to €6,86 million (2013) and it employed 62 full-time equivalent employees. It works with various Fairtrade partners in the South: directly with 107 partners.
The main legitimacy of the organization comes from its very strong movement of volunteers, more than 6,000, all organized in a democratic way: they manage themselves the associative shops and participate to various actions and campaigns on fairtrade and economic justice issues.
Our position is to sell our products only in specialized and local shops and to not sell them in supermarkets.
? Educate young generation to Fairtrade
We organize awareness-raising actions in schools to involve and get engaged young generation in order to become better informed citizens about the working conditions and origin of the goods, the social and environmental impact of their consumption choice. We also intend to focus on the dysfunction of international trade, and to promote fairtrade principles as a way to build a fairer world.
? Our advocacy campaigns
We intend to mobilize citizens on different ethical issues and to join our mobilizations to make pressure on political decision makers. We defend positions regarding human rights, social, cultural and environmental issues. For example, as part of the larger ‘Vote4FT’ campaign, our main demands to the politicians was to support fairtrade of course, but also to put in place trade policies protective of human and workers’ rights.
? FAIRPRIDE : A carnival to promote Fairtrade
Since 2010, Artisans du Monde organize each year in Paris, in collaboration with many Fairtrade organizations, a carnival with a street
walking around with African and Latinos music bands as well as a food and handicraft market with organic, local and Fairtrade products. This event gathers a lot of people and promote Fairtrade values.
More info and the 2014 video: http://www.fairpride.fr/
More about Artisans du monde
? Discover our online shop to buy 100% Fairtrade products
Since September 2010, any consumer can also buy Artisans du Monde products on our web platform which offer a range of 1000 references (food products and handicraft: jewelry, music instruments, toys, decoration and cosmetics).
www.boutique-artisans-du-monde.com
? WFTO Guarantee System
The Federation Artisans du Monde is a full member of WFTO-Europe since 2007.
We have a self-assessment system for our members since 1999. Since 2013, we try to implement the new Fairtrade retailer standards so that our world shops network could be guaranteed under the WFTO system.
We also implement and monitor the WFTO guarantee system for the 100 Fairtrade suppliers we work with under our brand “Artisans du Monde” (handicraft, food and cosmetic products). To do so, we rely on multiple systems: certifying schemes recognized by WFTO and our own Internal Monitoring System we implement through the EFTA monitoring system.
Name: Artisans du Monde
Head Office: Montreuil, France
Date of foundation: 1974
Website: http://www.artisansdumonde.org
FT-RELATED NEWS, PUBLICATIONS AND OTHER TOOLS
- The FTAO’s Internal Advocacy Bulletin for October 2014 (login required) includes articles regarding policy issues (New set-up for European Parliament Fair Trade Working Group, Show solidarity with Hungarian NGOs, appeal to the EU!), FTAO news (Study with Ecuadorian government on public policies in support of Fair Trade) and more!
- Call of G7/G8 Civil Society Organizations to their Governments on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa.
- Article about the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
- A new report from the World Bank Group identifies identifies Major Clean-Tech Market Opportunity for SME in Developing Countries
- The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate has launched its new report “Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report.
- A report from Fairtrade Foundation about the role of smallholder farmers in public private partnerships.
This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of WFTO-Europe and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.