Fairtrade Network of Asia and Pacific Producers takes the pleasure of announcing a new Partnership Agreement with International Cooperative Alliance Asia and Pacific (ICA-AP). The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) is a non-profit international association established in 1895 to advance the Cooperative Model. It is the apex organisation for cooperatives worldwide, representing 317 cooperative federations and organisations across 110 countries (October 2020). The members of the ICA are National level Cooperative Federations, Individual Cooperative Organizations, and Government Offices concerned with Cooperatives.
The exciting tentative areas of Partnership engagement include:
- Undertaking advocacy programs and promoting fair working conditions, fair price, sustainable practices, product standardization and improving value chains among cooperatives.
- Partnering on joint proposals and associating in joint initiatives for advancing shared goals relating to furthering cooperative enterprises, Fairtrade practices, cooperative-entrepreneurship, and undertaking initiatives relating to gender mainstreaming, youth engagement; climate change adaptation and mitigation; disaster management and market access in the Asia Pacific region.
- Asserting the impact of sustainable and fair practices in empowering cooperatives and their role in supporting cooperative entrepreneurship, by collectively undertaking thematic research on the topic and co-organising knowledge-sharing workshops such as Fairtrade for Cooperatives Meet (FCM) to share ideas, ongoing work, and build scope for future partnerships on development.
- Conducting training and capacity building programs for the co-operators, youth, and women.
- Work together to encourage coop-to-coop trade; increase market opportunities and expose cooperatives and producer organizations to new supply chains in national, regional and international markets
- Scaling up best practices on cooperative development such as cooperative entrepreneurship among the youth (Global Cooperative Entrepreneurs) as well as Fairtrade market access within the Asia-Pacific region
What’s Upcoming?
- A Capacity Building Workshop on Fair Trade will be organised by NAPP in association with ICA-AP in December 2020 with our Cooperatives.
- An Online Workshop on ‘Strengthening farmers and workers in the value chain’ will be organized for the Cooperatives in Myanmar who are partners of ICA. The workshop is planned in order to stimulate the collaboration amongst stakeholders that promote fair trade at multiple levels.
