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 Poverty reduction through trade
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An essential characteristic of fair trade practice, as defined by FINE, is «empowerment of producers and workers as stakeholders in their own organizations».
The collective view of the fair trade movement is that products defined as «fair trade» must be made in workers' cooperatives and associations, or in similar community organizations.
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You can call up more supporting text and strategic necessities of fair trade practice by clicking here:
FINE definition of fair trade
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Meanwhile, IFAT's approach has been to come up with "standards and indicators" for fair trade.
These try to set a «core» baseline that all their members should commit to attaining.
They state that the essential mission of each IFAT member organization must be «poverty reduction through trade».
IFAT members should deliberately support disadvantaged, marginalized or economically poor producers and/or associations or cooperatives of such people.
To check compliance, IFAT examines members' mission statements (and awareness of the statement within the organizations); the records of suppliers including suppliers' statements of mission or purpose; and the existence of a development plan that outlines what the organization does to promote sustainable development for producers (directly or through other players in the supply chain).
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Organizations are to be transparent, providing evidence of how any surpluses (profits) are used to benefit producers. There is to be payment of a fair price, and indicators will demonstrate how that is done.There is to be protection of children, improvements for the situation of women, safe and healthy working conditions, concern for the environment, capacity building (developing producers' skills, and market access arrangements), and some advocacy and campaigning to raise awareness of the issues involved.
Checking that these standards are adhered to is generally by a process known as «self certification». This appears to rely mostly on members' own statements as assurances that they function in tune with IFAT standards.
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