Comments on: What did trade campaigns achieve? Plus reinventing Robert Chambers & changing aid narratives: some Berlin conversations

By: S

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 10:44:03 +0000

ActionAid is adopting methodologies for participatory disaster risk management also in its work in the “North” , in Italy. This cross-fertilization is – itself – producing interesting innovation

By: Indrani Ganguly

Indrani Ganguly — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 23:19:38 +0000

SEWA and Grameen Bank provided models for micro credit that may have been adopted in the North.

By: Liz May

Liz May — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:02:26 +0000

Persistence is indeed the key (as many Traidcraft campaigners can testify!) but also re-framing trade campaigns to respond to the new battlegrounds. For Traidcraft (and our extremely economically literate campaigners) this has meant focusing on the surge of investors using ISDS to sue developing countries and the impact that has on sovereignty and policy space in the South. But also looking in more depth at those who actually do the trade. What do unfair purchasing practices by buyers mean for those at the sharp end of international supply chains? how can power in those supply chains be better balanced and poor behaviour better regulated? And here we’ve made some real progress, for example with the establishment of the ‘Supermarkets Watchdog’, but Duncan is right we are still in defensive mode – stopping the bad, tackling symptoms rather than causes. The next real challenge has to be how to be more propositional – to make sure that the rules enable (and don’t prevent) producers and small businesses moving into the higher value parts of supply chains. Companies and consumers will also need to rise to this challenge by ceding some power and profit in favour of a genuinely fairer and more transparent distribution of value.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 09:30:23 +0000

Oxfam had been trying to reframe the narrative on trade for some time before the trade campaign. Back in the 80’s trade was one of the 5 issues identified in John Clark’s Oxfam report on the causes of hunger For Richer, For Poorer. That became the basis for early campaigning under the banner of Hungry for Change
You are right… One thing we do have to have is stamina! It’s a long fight.