Trade for Development Centre is a programme of Enabel, the Belgian development agency.
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How sustainable is today’s cocoa?

After the cocoa industry was blamed for the many child labour scandals and because cocoa producers were being paid prices that were far too low, large chocolate companies took initiatives to improve the sustainability. What is the current situation, particularly after the cocoa price on the world market dropped significantly last year?
Even while market conditions are tough, across cocoa-producing regions cooperatives resolutely choose for sustainable or organic production and fair trade. Twenty of these cooperatives are supported by the Trade for Development Centre (TDC). To put a face on their endeavours, we visited Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire as well as Bolivia and Vietnam.

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Articles (en)

Fair Trade Gold seeks customer

In countries such as the UK and the Netherlands, the awareness of fair trade gold is already well established, so some celebrities have started to display their fair trade jewellery. In Belgium, the progress is slower: you will only find 16 goldsmiths and jewellery designers working with Fairtrade or Fairmined certified materials.

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Coaching producers’ groups in business management

Since several years the Trade for Development Centre has been coaching cooperatives active in fair or sustainable trade to better market their products. Very often it was confronted with the cooperatives’ poor knowledge of how to manage their organisation. This led to a new series of modules, more specifically coaching in business management. This report outlines our initial experience with the new module in Uganda, Rwanda and Benin.

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Bruges launches its own fair trade chocolate

Bruges is the first city in the world to launch its own fair trade chocolate bar, called Sjokla (as the word “chocolate” is pronounced in West Flanders). In doing so, the city, home to many chocolate makers, combines local craftsmanship and fair trade chocolate. The chocolate bar is also made from local ingredients.

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Enabel supports Vietnamese cocoa cooperatives in their fair trade certification.

Fair trade certification is expected to help Vietnamese cocoa enter the EU market, especially after the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement takes effect (2019), experts have said.

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Marketing expertise key to value chain approach

Belgium’s governmental development cooperation (BTC) for agricultural projects increasingly uses value chain approaches. To start, a particular crop’s value chain – not only the production on the field but also the next stages – is analysed. After all, what’s the use of a high-quality and sustainable product if it cannot be sold? Where can farmers find potential customers and how should they communicate with them? In the south of Morocco a project in the saffron and dates value chains is in its third year. It is the first BTC project in which the Trade for Development Centre (TDC) has been involved from its formulation because of its marketing expertise with producer groups in the South. Midway this project we drew up a state of affairs.

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Fair and community-based tourism

We all know fair trade bananas, coffee, chocolate… but do you know about fair tourism? It is less known, but booming! The United Nations declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development recalling the potential of tourism to advance the universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Trade for Development presents presents 4 community-based tourism projects that it supports.

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Linking Ugandan farmers to organic and fair trade markets

United we stand, divided we fall. This motto defines what NOGAMU is trying to promote among farmers. To ensure that Ugandan farmers are able to sell their harvest at a fair price and grow their business, the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) helps them to become organised into groups or cooperatives and to become more empowered. As a part of a cooperative, a farmer has the security to sell his harvest at a better price and can also learn to farm more sustainably.

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Ethics and aesthetics: fair cosmetics

Ever heard of fair cosmetics? Thanks to these personal care and beauty products, producers are able to improve their own, and their family’s, living conditions.
Products made by and for women, combining ethics and aesthetics. A number of brands that attracted our attention are listed below.

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On the road to sustainable palm oil? The soaring ambitions of the Belgian Alliance for Sustainable Palm Oil

Palm oil has unique properties which is why it is very much coveted by the food industry. But palm oil is also often associated with rampant deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. To prevent this damage to the environment, the Belgian Alliance for Sustainable Palm Oil aims to work towards more sustainable cultivation.

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