The North East Making a Difference to World Poverty

The North East – making a difference to world poverty

By Paul Chandler, Chief Executive, Traidcraft

Despite the repeated pictures on our TV screens, it is all too easy for us to consider the problems of world poverty remote from the concerns of the North East.

Yet we are in daily contact with the global community through the things we wear and consume. Your breakfast this morning may well have included tea from East Africa, coffee from Latin America, orange juice from South Africa, sugar from Malawi and rice from India.

Like it or not, the choices we make when we buy things have a direct impact on producers whom we will never know or see. We cannot escape moral responsibility for the impact our lives have on those who grow and make the things we consume.

Against this background, it is really encouraging to see the North East emerging as one of the world’s centres of excellence in fair trade – trade that is designed to help poor communities in Africa, Asia and elsewhere build sustainable livelihoods for themselves.

More and more products with the Fairtrade Mark have appeared in supermarkets over the last few years – sales of fairly traded products are growing by 50% or more each year. In the last two years alone the number of fair trade product lines available in supermarkets has risen from just 150 to over 900 – in direct response to growing customer demand.

What is perhaps less well-known is that the North East is one of the leaders in this sector.

 Traidcraft, the UK’s leading fair trade organisation, is based on the Team Valley in Gateshead, and offers the UK’s widest range of fairly traded products as well as running a leading development charity.  Shared Interest – a “bank” that finances a large proportion of fair trade transactions around the world - is based in Newcastle.  Tropical Wholefoods, another leading supplier of fair trade foods, is based in Sunderland.  Newcastle was UK’s first metropolitan authority to achieve fairtrade status, and many other local authorities and cities in the region are following suit.  All the region’s major Christian denominations have declared themselves for fair trade in an expression of ecumenical solidarity.  The Government Office for the North East has even included the growth of fair trade sales as one of the key indicators of the Region’s contribution to sustainability.

It is perhaps not surprising that the North East is making so much of the running in fair trade, given the natural empathy between a region that has known poverty and is experiencing regeneration, and the fair trade movement’s aim of fighting poverty through trade on a global scale. We can rightly take pride in what we are achieving already and the leadership we are showing in the field.

But there is a long way to go. Fair trade still accounts for a tiny proportion – perhaps just 1% - of what we buy, and many companies still source goods in ways that exploit the poor. As individuals we could make more of a difference.

If our voting choices encourage policy makers to take decisions based on money and efficiency, rather than on how far they contribute to community and well-being; if our purchasing choices encourage supermarkets to sell products as cheaply as possible, even though this means turning the screw on others in the supply chain, we are helping to create a world driven by money rather than human values. We will only change this by adjusting our own behaviour – even if this involves some costs for ourselves.

Will you decide to opt for fair trade products when you go shopping? Will you encourage your employer to stock fair trade goods in the canteen? Will you encourage your council to do more to promote fair trade education and sourcing? Will you support the Make Poverty History campaign through petitions, marches or wearing a white wristband?

Individually our choices and actions might seem insignificant, but added together they send out the signals to which businesses and governments must – and do - respond. If we really want to make the North East a beacon in the fight against world poverty, then the buck starts with us.

This Wednesday evening, I am speaking at an ippr north roundtable Making the global local: does local action make a difference? to debate the role of our region. We’d like to hear your views, to book a place email [email protected] or visit www.ippr.org/north for more details.