| I am Witness to the Birth of the Sustainable Economy |
| 22 May 2009 | |
|
Unfairness is the root cause of poverty. Extreme wealth has generated extreme poverty, the value had to come from somewhere and historically it comes out of the raw materials, commodities and the cheap labour of under-nourished nations. Poverty is greed, poverty is ignorance, poverty is where a majority of people have been kept to maximise a return for a few. This is not a political view, it is simply a market condition, an economic reality, and it's why we're all faced with crisis today. Global governments spend more in a month to bail out banks than it would take to deliver the Millennium Development Goals and rid the world of poverty once and for all. And they've done it to save themselves (and us) from poverty. That's how badly the developed world wants to avoid poverty is - WE don't want to go there. The way to avoid poverty is to eradicate its causes. Why take jobs abroad when the costs of a human wage are similar to those at home? Why pay inflated salaries and bonuses to middlemen when you can buy direct from a producer - in Fair Trade the middlemen were the first to go. And why keep half the world in the dark about what's going on in the other half when it's only by working together in a transparent way that we have any prospect of leaving a planet fit for our children and their children. Poverty is a product of the way we trade. You can change that. (Yes you can.) Poverty, as it turns out, also contributes to the destruction of our environment. Rainforest logging produces 20% the global carbon emissions; the world's single biggest single contributor to climate change - bigger than the entire transport sector, and poverty is why it is being cut down. To generate unsustainable income from unsustainable production to service the unsustainable needs of the minority. Extraordinary greed, extraordinary indifference to risk and an extraordinary lack of transparency has created the economic bubble that has now burst, inverted into a black hole, and a void of irrecoverable debt. Banks, businesses and entire economies are being sucked into it. And what are we doing about it? Raising more debt to fill the void and maintain a system that has finally imploded. Debt is no solution and cannot be sustained. The volatility in our markets is familiar to Fair Traders who have developed principles, procedures and practices to deal with merciless volatility over decades. The collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989 exposed developing economies to the crisis we all face today. The disaster gave birth to some world famous Fair Trade businesses and brands and has driven the growth in Fair Trade products and produce ever since. From these challenging events some positive outcomes developed. There are cooperatives, companies and organizations all over the world that are transforming their markets and their environment with sustainable Fair Trade investment and technical expertise and guidance. They are pioneering a new relationship between producers and consumers, who invest in each other, for the benefit of both, and for the future of us all. These organizations are known as the FT100 (100% Fair trade Organizations) and all are the members of the World Fair Trade Organization, which manages and monitors progress and sets the standards for continual improvement. The WFTO has piloted an organizational certification system that has the potential to transform any organization into a sustainable Fair Trade business. By connecting the ends of the supply chain directly and transparently together and investing into ever-improving sustainable products and services we can build a better and much fairer way of life. (Yes we can, we've been doing it for decades.) This new relationship sits at the heart of a sustainable economic investment culture. It creates transparency, growth and drives innovation. The world is searching for a new way of thinking, one that it can depend on, and one that works. Fortunately, one exists. If we truly believe that Fair Trade is both sustainable and effective, then it is the solution to the world's financial crisis. Not only that, it can also help us Beat Poverty and Beat Climate Change too. Paul Myers, President, World Fair Trade Organization |
