Make trade fair
Photo Credit:Tom Greenwood/Oxfam
Trade has tremendous potential to reduce global poverty. So, we're pressing decision-makers and governments for new trade rules – fair rules to make a real and positive difference in the fight against poverty.
We campaign to:
- Stop the United States and European Union dumping subsidised farm products in the developing world that ruin the livelihoods of local farmers
- Stop rich countries from forcing developing countries to prematurely open their economies to agricultural imports
- Improve the price paid to small farmers for their coffee as part of our Fairtrade coffee campaign
- Make sure that trade agreements between rich countries such as ours and poorer countries do not undermine the lives and livelihoods of poor people
- Make sure that companies and governments respect workers' rights in the developing world
Our fair trade campaign success
- Together with other campaigning organisations and farmers groups, we have successfully lobbied the World Trade Organization to exempt developing countries from cutting their import tariffs on agricultural products that are essential for rural people's livelihoods
- Our Fairtrade coffee campaign has contributed to an increase in sales: Fairtrade coffee sales in Australia reached an estimated $14 million in 2007–2008, an increase of 75% on the previous year
- Our campaign for workers' rights in the sportswear industry achieved major wins in 2008. adidas released its global list of supplier factories after thousands of Australians sent letters and lobbied the company for greater transparency. adidas was also bombarded with more than 3,000 messages to support workers from closed adidas supplier factories to gain rights to compensation and alternative employment. To date, 900 workers have been re-employed.
What now?
We continue to campaign with the world's poorest people, wherever we see their ability to trade under threat.
We're particularly concerned about Australia's and New Zealand's negotiations with small island states in the South Pacific. If Australia is to be a good neighbour in the Pacific, it must use its aid and trade policies to help fight poverty in the region and negotiate a fair trade deal with our Pacific neighbours.
We need you
There's hope in action. Become a Campaign Partner and we'll make sure your call to make trade fair is heard in the centres of power – the United Nations, corporate boardrooms, governments, the World Bank and beyond.
Closer to home, you can shape world trade by becoming a Fairtrade shopper.
Learn more
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