Fair Trade, Fair Wage? Research evidence from Ethiopia and Uganda - 17.03.15
Chris Cramer, Deborah Johnston and Carlos Oya share their findings from Fair Trade, Employment and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia and Uganda, a four year DFID-funded research project (2009-13).
Focussing on areas producing agricultural exports, this project collected detailed micro-level evidence how rural labour markets affect the lives of people living in poverty. Comparative evidence was compiled to cover Fair Trade certified production and non-certified production, with the objective of making the case for new, cost-effective interventions directly targeted to improve living standards for communities involved in agricultural export commodity production.
What effective measures can be utilised to help ensure these producers, who face volatile global market prices, choose wisely from the range of new certification schemes and codes of practice that have been devised, including Fair Trade? The methodologically original fieldwork of this project in Ethiopia and Uganda has generated uniquely detailed evidence to help answer this question.
