Establishing regional dynamics to support the development of fair trade as a sustainable development tool (EQUITE)

The challenge of fair trade lies in changing international trade rules so that producers in countries in the South can benefit from the expansion of trade. Compared to other regions, West Africa is the region where there is the lowest level of certified volumes and where fair trade industries have developed the most recently.
From a sustainable development perspective, fair trade could be an effective tool for biodiversity protection. Its effectiveness has not been demonstrated yet, but developments in environmental rules related to fair trade provides an opportunity to inform consumers, who are key stakeholders in fair trade.
 

The project is based on three components:

• Facilitate support for fair trade industries and biodiversity protection in West Africa, in order to build the capacities of producers’ organizations for production, quality management, market access and territorial management (biodiversity).
• Provide support for structuring and institutionally strengthening representation networks for producers’ organizations and their national and regional platforms involved in fair trade.
• Specific activities to measure and monitor the environmental impacts of projects, study on the development potential of trade labeled South-South.

• Strengthen local support structures for fair trade, in particular FTA-WAN, with a major increase in its capacity to manage its missions and represent the interests of African industries in international Fair Trade bodies (by creating specific repositories for the region), with a strengthening or creation of national fair trade associations in the project countries.  
• Some fifteen projects set up by certified producers’ organizations, with at least three in the field of biodiversity protection. These projects strengthen and become pilot operations for the region to improve the production, quality and marketing of industries, implement environmental criteria for environmental certifications, and study the contribution that this type of approach makes as a tool for biodiversity protection.
• Improve the structuring of fair trade industries in West Africa, positioning these industries on retail markets and in decision-making bodies, and improving biodiversity protection in fair trade certification frameworks.