Chocolate Report PDF - Fair Trade Barrie

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Globalisation: a dirty word?
PHOTOGRAPHY: Brian Moody
Globalisation: the exploitation by the
affluent West of the Third World poor?
The pillage by greedy multinationals
of the labour and natural resources
of people who have insufficient clout
to negotiate a better deal? Or the
only hope for a better life for millions
in developing countries?
Oxfam and many other development
organisations believe trade can play a
vital part in poverty reduction when
the right conditions are met. Trade can
equally be hugely damaging for poor
people if it undermines their livelihoods
by destroying their markets or ruining
their environment.
In the foreword to the Oxfam report
on trade, globalisation and the fight
against poverty,‘Rigged Rules and
Double Standards’, Oxfam’s honorary
president and Nobel Economics
Laureate, Amartya Sen, writes:
“Global interaction, rather than
insulated isolation, has been the basis
of economic progress in the world.
Trade...has helped to break the
dominance of rampant poverty and the
pervasiveness of ‘nasty, brutish and short’
lives that characterised the world.”
But the report identifies a crucial paradox
of global trading - that at the same time
as being a source of unprecedented
wealth, millions of the world’s poorest
people are being left behind.
“World trade has the potential to act
as a powerful motor for the reduction
of poverty, as well as for economic
growth, but that potential is being lost.
The problem is not that international
trade is inherently opposed to the
needs and interests of the poor, but
that the rules that govern it are rigged
in favour of the rich.”
The report analyses the rules governing
world trade and puts forward Oxfam’s
policy goals for correcting the balance
between the extremes of western
prosperity and of third world poverty, in
launching its ‘Make Trade Fair’ campaign.
The Co-op fully supports Oxfam’s
position that the right path is not one
of ‘no trade’, but of ‘fair trade’.
Although long committed to a
responsible retailing policy in our
relationships with customers and
suppliers, the Co-op does not believe
in product boycotts.
Supermarket brands are particularly
anonymous and are often supplied
by major companies. The Co-op is
determined to make this relationship
more transparent. The choice of
supplier is crucial, if retailer and customer
want to make a real difference to the
livelihood of that supplier.
Products like bananas and mangoes,
fruit juices, tea, coffee, cocoa and
many more are sourced entirely or in
part from growers in the Third World.
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