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This was the title of a Foreign Affairs Seminar on 29 March 2006
concerned with Trade Justice, Fair Trade and the Millennium Development
Goals.
The meeting opened with a dynamic presentation by
Sjoerd Vogt, who was responsible for establishing Faringdon as the first
‘fair trade town’ in South East England. His title
“Re-arranging the deck chairs while the ship goes down” was
intriguing and explained. He said: "We have much to be
proud of in what we have achieved with Fairtrade and Fairtrade towns -
but that doesn't mean we should be satisfied. To ensure that
Fairtrade really becomes mainstream, we all need to be not just
consumers, but campaigners. Becoming a Fairtrade town can be a
very effective way of reaching every part of the community, and as a
marketing tool it can even be great fun!"
Juliet Colman, President of UNIFEM
UK
, asked “Is trade the way out of poverty for poor women and for the
achievement of the MDGs?” She drew attention to the
Millennium Development Goals on poverty and to the many projects being
promoted by UNIFEM to help women to help themselves, exploring various
aspects of work, trade and economic security for women and the
particular barriers that women face. She also
outlined UNIFEM’s work in the field of microcredit and its Trust Fund
to Eliminate Violence Against Women. It is interesting to note
that Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, the recently elected President
of Liberia, was co-author of the UNIFEM report Women, War, Peace, which
drew attention to UN Resolution 1325 with which the Foreign Affairs
Policy Committee has been much involved.
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Clare Akamanzi, Counsellor for Commercial
Affairs at the Rwanda Embassy, ('Trade and the MDGs: Reinforcing the
linkages') gave a very useful brief summary of the eight MDGs, stressing
that they are inter-related. She then gave an impressive account
of the work done for women in her country, where almost half the
Parliamentarians are women. Child mortality, maternity care, and
HIV/AIDS receive especial care.
Andrew George MP, until recently LibDem spokesman on
DfID matters, in his excellent presentation, asked ‘Can we make unfair
trade history?” and stressed the need for sustainable development, for
which trade was the most important thing of all. He mentioned the
phrase ‘Charity begins at home’ in connection with fairtrade and
pointed out that the stress should be on ‘begins’ rather than
‘home’: charity begins at home but should not end there.
Meredith Cochrane, newly appointed Campaign Manager at
the Fairtrade Foundation, spoke on 'A role for everyone: Fairtrade
Campaigning' and focused on fairtrade campaigning and its
potential. She first gave an account of some of the work done by
the Fairtrade Foundation. The seminar then became enjoyably
inter-active, with delegates dividing into workshops.
The seminar was completed with a question and answer
forum.
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