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Fair Trade: Overview, Impact, Challenges
relatively poor and marginalised producers are reflected in decisions about social
investment.
Box 3 Impact Evaluation and Traidcraft Exchange. Rather than trying to provide support
services directly from the UK, Traidcraft Exchange (TX) has worked with and through partner
organisations to provide business services in Tanzania, The Philippines, South Africa, India,
Bangladesh and Zambia. Evaluations of the work of TX and its partner organisations over
the past two years have centred on reviews of reports and the use of semi-structured
interviews, and generally concentrated on impact at the institutional rather than the
household level. TX states that it is now pursuing a more rigorous approach to baseline
studies and the use of monitoring indicators.
Many of the themes arising out of TX's work with its Southern partners mirror the experience
of mainstream small enterprise development. In particular TX concludes that:
♦ Organisational governance structures are crucial;
♦ Marketing services are vital;
♦ Government funding arrangements do not always promote the necessary security and
stability of relationships needed for institution building; and
♦ Some business development services cannot necessarily be expected to be self sustaining
and need long run government or donor support.
In Tanzania, AMKA was established as TX's partner agency for stimulating and supporting
the export of crafts and food products from small producers. An evaluation in July 1998
concluded that some small groups had been introduced to the export market for the first time,
whilst some groups which were already involved in exporting had made breakthroughs to
bigger orders. AMKA's client partners tended to be smaller and more rural than other
Tanzanian exporters, and although their average sales volumes had not grown much over four
years this performance was considered to be better than many Tanzanian exporters which had
seen their exports fall over the same period. An evaluation of the Philippines Fair Trade
Programme (PFTP) was also positive.
However, a review of Just Exchange's (JX) work in South Africa was less so. Although JX
did instigate sales close to the project target of Rand 6 million most of these sales were
attributable to four farm businesses rather than community based craft businesses. Whilst the
evaluation acknowledged the difficult environment within which JX had had to operate, it
concluded that the project's outreach objectives had not been achieved, and that headline
sales success could not hide 'very weak' performance with respect to capacity building among
organisations involved with export and business development. In addition it was felt that the
capacity of JX had not developed as envisaged, that JX targets for cost recovery had not been
met, and that there significant concerns regarding the efficiency of JX.
An evaluation of Zambili d'Afrique in Zambia was generally very positive but concluded that
TX (at the request of Zambili management) had been playing too many different roles at the
same time without recognising the potential conflict between them. These roles included being
project manager, a channel for donor funds, building technical capacity in the UK and
Zambia, providing marketing support in the UK to Zambili and its partners, mentoring
Zambili staff in its provision of organisational development support, and finally Executive
Committee member.