May 2008

Fair Trade is a fair alternative to con-

ventional trade, which can impoverish

and exploit farmers and workers. Fair

Trade guarantees justice – in wages, in

the work environment, in job security,

for an ecologically-sound environment,

and for both women and men – and no

child labour is permitted.

Oxfam Hong Kong launched its

Make Trade Fair campaign in 2003,

which focused on advocacy for better

international trade rules. With the WTO

Ministerial Conference being held in

Hong Kong in 2005, public awareness

grew exponentially, as well as the sup-

port for Fair Trade: an A.C. Nielsen sur-

vey in 2006 – commissioned by Oxfam

Hong Kong – showed that 78% are in-

terested to buy Fair Trade and that 96%

are willing to pay up to HK$10 more

for the ethically-produced and -traded

products. In the same year, Oxfam Hong

WORLD FAIR

TRADE Day

World Fair Trade Day 2008: May 10

CHINA: Threads of Yunnan

TIMOR-LESTE: Disaster Risk Policy

HONG KONG: No Climate Change!

WORLD: Food Prices a Poverty Crisis

• Over 50 places sell Fair Trade goods in Hong Kong• Asia-wide, there are 38 members of International Fair Trade

Association or Fairtrade Labelling Organizations, including 13 certified traders of coffee or tea in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China

• Over 1 million farmers and workers in poor countries work under Fair Trade

• Fair Trade products come from about 50 countries• Over 3,000 Fair Trade products – rice, chocolate, oil, sugar,

wine, cotton, handicrafts, footballs, coffee, tea, seeds, dried fruit, herbs, spices, honey, juice, nuts and more

• In Hong Kong, Oxfam has estimated sales from September 2006 to August 2007 to be at least HK$8.4 million

• Worldwide, Fair Trade sales in 2006 exceeded HK$44.5 billion.

It’s time.

Kong began to promote Fair Trade and

in 2008, we co-founded the non-profit

group, Fair Trade Hong Kong, with elev-

en other members.

Oxfam Hong Kong is the first mem-

ber in Hong Kong of the International

Fair Trade Association (www.ifat.org),

which is the largest Fair Trade body with

over 300 members in 70 countries. The

first IFAT member in Mainland China is

featured in the article, “The One and

Only – Threads of Yunnan for a Fair

Life”. Oko-GreeN, a group in Taiwan

that participated in an Oxfam seminar

in 2007, is now a trader of Fair Trade

tea. Over the years, Oxfam has sup-

ported many projects around the world

to give farmers a bigger voice in their

livelihood. A recent collaboration is

with Betterday in Vietnam, which pro-

vides Fair Trade tea, cashews and coffee

(www.betterday.com.vn).

Fair Trade in Hong Kong, Asia and the world

This Fair Trade sugar from the Philippines is available in Hong Kong through: www.fair-and-healthy.com

Here is a list of Fair Trade outlets in Hong Kong: www.oxfam.org.hk/fairtrade/shoplist

WORLD FAIR

TRADE Day

in China

nan became the first mainland China

member of the International Fair Trade

Association. The greater exposure and

the more extensive marketing channels

through IFAT have brought Threads of

Yunnan tangible results. Project partici-

pants now earn five times more than

before: the women’s average income

in 2001 was 189 Yuan, in 2007, it was

over 1000.

In the village that Hogh and her col-

leagues first visited, almost every single

child now goes to school – before only

one in five had the chance. Now the at-

tendance rate is over 98 per cent.

Threads of Yunnan continues on,

now with almost 250 craftswomen in 12

rural communities, typically only accessi-

ble by a rugged footpath. The goal is to

employ about 500 women in 30 villages.

They also want to bring the Fair Trade

management and marketing model to

tea production, aiming to help about

3,500 other farmers in Yunnan.

Threads of Yunnan handicrafts

products available at

www.globalhandicrafts.org

www.hkfairtradepower.com

www.yandymays.com.hk

leader, and also started a small shop af-

ter some basic training in business man-

agement. The village shop sells thread

and cloth for the handicrafts, as well

as everyday items such as soap, paper

and cigarettes.

''I am very busy every day,” she said.

“I cook and work in the fields every

day, and every morning, I work on my

handicrafts things. After dinner, I go to

night school.” Pingfen also arranges for

the collection of handicrafts from other

nearby villages. She has given a lot of

time to the project, and what has in-

spired her after a long hard workday is

the fact that her children have been able

to go to school – something she never

had the chance to do herself. Pingfen’s

spirits are high, she feels supported by

the other project participants, and her

husband helps more around the house

so that she can have more time for her

handicrafts.

It was in 2002 that Threads of Yun-

handicrafts work, and they have used

this income in many ways: for their

children’s school fees, to start small-

scale businesses, buy household neces-

sities, pay for medical expenses, open

market stalls, raise pigs and other live-

stock, buy furniture, and make home

improvements.

In addition to the income earned by

the individual women, ten per cent of

Threads of Yunnan sales are reinvested

into the community as a whole, and

the women themselves decide how the

community uses the funds. One village

might choose to begin an irrigation

project, while another might invest in

better seeds and fertilisers.

Wang Pingfen is one Threads of

Yunnan participant from the area hit by

that massive earthquake back in 1994.

A skilled embroiderer, she was in her

early thirties then, and her two chil-

dren were school-aged. Pingfen joined

the project, became a handicrafts group

In all of mainland China, there is

only one member of the International

Fair Trade Association. This pioneering

project in China is with impoverished

yet expert farmer-artisans in Yunnan, in

the southwest corner of the country.

It all began with an earthquake. It

ripped through the mountains in 1994,

destroying many villages, so new vil-

lages were rebuilt in safer areas, and

people resettled. When colleagues from

Danyun, a Yunnan-based organisation,

visited one of these new communities

high up in the rugged hills, they were

immediately taken by the people’s pov-

erty. Too cold and too dry to grow rice,

the preferred food crop, villagers here

harvest corn, wheat, buckwheat, po-

tato, and turnip for a living. Their in-

come was only about 45 Yuan a month

in 1995, from selling any excess crop and

from occasional manual labour work in

the city. About 80 per cent of the chil-

dren were out of school – their parents

could not afford the fees.

The Danyun colleagues, led by a

Danish woman named Bitten Hogh,

were also taken by the women’s colour-

ful clothing, the strong ethnic motifs

used in the garments, and the extraor-

dinary embroidery skills. Hogh, who has

both a government and a business back-

ground, sensed that their skills could

be marketable, and could help bring

in some desperately needed income,

and she promised herself to explore

the possibility.

As a short-term help, she made a do-

nation of money as well as hoes, “but

giving money can’t really improve their

lives in the long term,” she says.

Hogh had just founded Danyun, a

business consultancy that links China

with the international market and, in-

spired by the craftswomen, Danyun

eventually launched the non-profit

‘Threads of Yunnan’ project a few years

later, in 1999. The first batch of recruits

was five women from that new yet poor

village. She and her colleagues see the

project as socio-economic outreach to

help women reach self-sufficiency, sus-

tainability and equity: it is not a char-

ity-minded institution. “The women we

work with learn to help themselves,”

she says. “I want to be a person who

builds a bridge…”

The project design is straightfor-

ward. The Threads of Yunnan partici-

pants – whether they are Han Chinese,

Miao, Lisu, Lahu, Dai or Yi minority

women – create authentic works of

handicrafts art, such as handbags, gift

cards, pillows and ornaments, while

Danyun helps design, promote and

market the items internationally, main-

ly through global Fair Trade networks

such as International Fair Trade Associat-

ion, the church network, online sales,

and retail shops in Kumming, which is

the largest city in Yunnan.

The women participant-employees

receive immediate payment for their

calling on everyone to wear Fair Trade

cotton, kick a Fair Trade football, eat

and drink some Fair Trade tea, coffee,

wine, chocolate, fruit… People can

choose what they want to do, but please

do something! The event is called FAIR

TRADE BREAK, and at 3pm on 10 May,

there will be a little party to toast all the

FAIR TRADE BREAKS happening around

Hong Kong.

Hotung Secondary School has al-

ready decided what to do: 500 students

will eat a Fair Trade snack at their week-

ly assembly. It is part of a three-day,

student-led event at the school, which

is considering keeping Fair Trade on

campus for the long term. “The way we

use our consumer power will affect the

livelihoods of many people in develop-

ing countries,” said Leung King-fai, a

Liberal Studies teacher.

It was the students who chose to

join FAIR TRADE BREAK. They saw Fair

Trade as the best topic for ‘From Service

Learning to Liberal Studies’, a Hong

Kong-wide project in collaboration with

the Boys’ and Girls’ Club Association,

one of the biggest youth NGOs.

10 May 2008

THE ONE AND ONLY: Threads of Yunnan for a Fair Life

This year is the second year in a row

that Hong Kong will mark WORLD FAIR

TRADE DAY, which is always held on

the second Saturday of May, and is en-

dorsed by IFAT.

From Noon to 8pm on the day, 10

May, there will be a big FAIR TRADE

FAIR at the Star Ferry pier on Hong

Kong Island, but it really begins the day

before, when Fair Trade Hong Kong is

Sign up for FAIR TRADE BREAK now:

www.fairtradehk.org

Face painting is part of the fun of World Fair Trade Day

Oxfam's Fair Trade launch at The Oxfam Shop in 2006

Four of the 250 crafts workers at Threads of Yunnan / Courtesy of Danyun

Mad

elei

ne S

lavi

ck /

Oxf

am H

ong

Kong

• In Bangladesh, about 40% of fam-

ilies at or just below the poverty

line of US$1 a day spend about

70% on food (Bangladesh Institute

of Development Studies)

• The price of wheat has recently

risen 67% in Afghanistan and the

price of bread 90% in Kabul: 2.5

million people now face a high risk

of food insecurity (Oxfam)

• 33 countries face the risk of unrest

due to food and energy prices (The

World Bank)

• Global food prices have risen 35%

from January 2007 to January

2008, and then a further 65% since

(United Nations)

• By March 2008, the real price of

rice hit a 19-year high, and wheat

a 28-year high (The World Bank)

• Soybean is at a 10-year high in

Indonesia, where it is a staple food

(Oxfam)

• 300 million people in India, Pakistan

and Bangladesh may be at risk of

starvation with the rise of cereal

prices (Asian Development Bank)

• Poor people in developing coun-

tries spend up to 80% of their in-

come on food (Oxfam)

Dr. Aurelio Guterres, helped put the

plan together as part of his work with

this government body which is within

the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

What the new government policy

means is that every Ministry will have

a budget for disaster risk reduction and

emergency response and must now

make its own disaster management

plan – this includes the Ministries of

Health, Education, and Public Works

and the Police, which all have staff in

the districts. The policy also allows for

a budget for more specialised training

for government staff members who

are involved in disaster risk manage-

ment work at all levels: this will enable

them to better assist communities in

their plans for preparing for, mitigating

against, and responding to disasters.

What the policy means for the popu-

lation is that in the future, some disas-

ters will be prevented, others will be

made less severe, and the responses to

emergencies will be faster.

Before the policy

was approved, emergency

response was often very slow.

The National Disaster Management

Directorate has had very limited re-

sources and were not able to send peo-

ple out to more remote areas to assist

the District Administrators and local

leaders to carry out necessary work.

People working out in the districts have

had very little knowledge and experi-

ence in disaster risk management work,

and decision-making was usually cen-

tralised in Dili and the money held at

the national level: it has been hard for

people outside of Dili to prepare and

respond. With the new policy, disaster

risk management committees will be

established, from the village level up,

so more participation will be possible

for everyone.

If we look at the severe floods of

January 2008 that battered the district

of Liquica, there is a road that has yet

to be repaired:

it has not ranked as

a priority, and the limited government

resources have gone elsewhere. The

residents of the area were provided

with food and tents, but there was no

evacuation plan for the safe locations

for people to go. With the new policy

and its plans, this situation should not

happen again: there will be proper

plans for each village, with a budget

and human resources, too. Poor peo-

ple’s capacity to prepare, mitigate,

and respond to disasters will increase,

the loss of life will be minimised, and

people’s livelihoods will be better

protected.

With Oxfam Hong Kong being one

of the first organisations in Timor-Leste

The world is entering a new age of

scarcity – of energy, oil, and food. The

first two dominate the headlines, but

it is the surge in food prices that has

the most immediate impact on poor

people.

After years of food prices remain-

ing relatively stable, a ‘perfect storm’ is

driving them through the roof. Boom-

ing China and India are eating more

meat, leading to a rapid increase in de-

mand for cereals for food and livestock.

High oil prices are pushing up the cost

of fertilisers and fuel. Climate change

is disrupting farming by playing havoc

with weather patterns. And rich coun-

try governments are promoting land-

hungry bio-fuels.

The result: wheat went from US$200

a tonne in May 2007 to US$450 a tonne

in February 2008. Good news for many

farmers – including some of the world’s

poorest people – but bad news for the

growing numbers of the urban poor.

Egypt, Mexico and Morocco are just

three of the middle-income countries

recently hit by food riots. Asian coun-

tries have started to hoard rice.

Poor families in sub-Saharan Africa

and the Indian subcontinent already

spend 80p out of every pound they

earn on food. Now they are forced to

buy less food, or cheaper, less nutritious

alternatives. In Senegal, people are eat-

ing fewer meals and cutting down on

protein-rich fish. They are pulling chil-

dren out of school and putting them

to work so they can eat. Across Africa

hard won gains in development are

being put at risk.

High food prices have triggered

hunger and starvation in the past and

could do so again, with the weakest

communities and countries the vic-

tims. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Governments and aid donors must act

now and they need to do three things.

Firstly, all governments need to in-

vest far more in agriculture, both to

feed their people and to reduce the

drain of food imports. The vast majo-

rity of the poorest countries have be-

come increasingly reliant on imported

food.

Most African governments have

failed to meet their 2003 promise to

allocate at least a tenth of their spend-

ing to agriculture and they are now

reaping the consequences, exacerbat-

ed as poor farmers need support to

adapt to a changing climate. Countries

such as Malawi and Zambia have shown

the way, moving from dependence on

food aid to become cereal exporters in

recent years.

But how governments achieve this

also matters. High food and oil prices

help turn agriculture everywhere into

a high cost, high return industry. This

requires financial services such as in-

surance and credit, which are not avail-

able to poor farmers. In Thailand, small

producers are going to the wall because

banks will not lend them money to man-

age between harvests.

Unfortunately, years of too-fast and

too-deep trade liberalisation, combined

with weak state and donor interven-

tions, mean many poor countries can-

not cope with the risk of high food

prices and nor seize the opportunities

they offer.

Boosting small-scale agriculture is

one of the best ways to ensure that

agriculture reduces poverty. Govern-

ments must base their efforts to boost

food production on small farmers, not

the large high tech farms that drive the

poor off the land.

Secondly, the hyper-expansion of

bio-fuels made from palm oil, sugar or

maize needs to be urgently reassessed.

In the worst cases (such as US maize-

based ethanol), the switch to bio-fuels

has provided a bonanza for agribusi-

ness, but has increased food prices while

doing precious little to reduce carbon

emissions. The original hype that bio-

fuels provided a solution to climate

change now appears to have been a

mirage as natural carbon sinks such

as rainforests and grasslands are de-

stroyed to make way for new bio-fuel

plantations or food production dis-

placed by bio-fuel crops.

The effects are set to get worse: by

one projection, governments’ thirst for

bio-fuels could mean an extra 600 mil-

lion people going hungry by the year

2025. However, a growing backlash

could force a rethink.

Thirdly, the sudden vulnerability of

hundreds of millions of families cries

out for a global system of safety nets.

Poor families faced with wildly fluctu-

ating prices need shock absorbers such

as national ‘social protection’ schemes

such as minimum income guarantees

and cash-for-work programmes.

At a global level, food import-

ing countries need financial help and

well-designed provisions for food

aid for the hungry. The UN’s World

Food Programme estimates it needs a

US$500m injection just to maintain its

operations at their 2007 level.

Instead of dumping surplus domes-

tic production as ‘in kind’ food aid,

donors should provide cash for govern-

ments and aid agencies to buy locally.

This is usually more efficient and better

for local agriculture.

When vital supplies of food or oil

run short, two things happen – prices

rise as do tensions about who gets what.

Scarcity is at least as much about poli-

tics and power as overall supply. Since

the days of Marie Antoinette’s ‘let them

eat cake’, food prices have provoked

unrest. Unless governments and the in-

ternational community act, both these

processes will squeeze out the poor

and politically weak, increasing polar-

ization and threatening mass hunger

and social breakdown.

Duncan Green is Head of Research at Oxfam Great Britain. Oxfam is factoring higher food prices into its work at many different levels, from on-the-ground community projects to advocacy for economic justice. This article was previously published in The Times of India and elsewhere, and Oxfam Hong Kong contributed an additional op-ed to the Hong Kong Economic Times (in Chinese) in mid-April.

For more information:http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/2008/pr080418_changes_needed_to_tackle_global_hunger_and_food_price_hikes

in Timor-Leste

FOOD PRICES

A POVERTY CRISIS

By Duncan Green

One lunchtime a few weeks ago,

Aurelio came to our office with a huge

grin on his face. Usually he is very seri-

ous, so we knew something good had

happened.

“Frank,” he said, “all of our hard

work has been worth it : the gov-

ernment just approved the National

Disaster Risk Management Policy.”

For Frank Elvey, the manager of

Oxfam Hong Kong’s Archipelagic

Southeast Asia programme, it certain-

ly was cause for celebration, a culmi-

nation of Oxfam’s work of promoting

a policy in Timor-Leste which incorpo-

rated a community-based approach to

preventing, preparing for, and respond-

ing to disasters.

The approval date was 5 March,

2008, but for over four years, Oxfam

Hong Kong had been supporting

the National Disaster Management

Directorate towards the development

of the national plan and policy. The

advisor funded by Oxfam Hong Kong,

YES TO POLICY By Maria de Araujo dos Reis

to promote community-based disaster

risk management, we have been visible

in the mass media: Aurelio appeared on

television the other week talking about

the new government policy.

He was smiling then, too.

A native of Timor-Leste, Maria de Araujo dos Reis has been working with Oxfam Hong Kong since 2003 and is based in Dili. Oxfam has been assisting various development efforts in Timor-Leste since 1999.

The main road between Dili and the border, after

the January 2008 floods / Courtesy

of NDMD

Climate change is now happening!

While we sit in air-conditioned rooms

in Hong Kong, poor people in farm-

ing communities around the world are

facing more and more extreme natu-

ral disasters brought on by the fast-

changing climate – their poverty is

worsening. Oxfam calls on youth in

Hong Kong to help STOP POVERTY, to

stop climate change.

Oxfam calls on youth to join YOUTH

CAMPAIGN PARTNERS 2008, a project

that combines training, overseas ex-

perience, and action. It’s a chance to

be more aware of poverty and espe-

cially about the changing climate’s im-

pact on poor people. It’s a chance to

gain skills and insights, and then take

action. Oxfam Hong Kong has been

running projects with youth for over

20 years.

YCP members must be aged 18 to 25,

and Chinese-speaking. To apply, and for

more information, contact Nicole Lee

at 3120 5298 / nicolel@oxfam.org.hk.

Deadline: 27 May, 2008

YOUTH can STOP climate POVERTY

NewPartnerOrganisations enrich

Domestic workers from Indonesia at a financial literacy training session / courtesy of enrich

OXFAM HONG KONG WEBSITEwww.oxfam.org.hk

OXFAM BOOKSOxfam Hong Kong has created

more than 30 books, some in Hong

Kong, some in Taiwan, some on the

Mainland, some in Chinese, some in

English, some bilingual, and some

mostly with images, which cross all

languages. Through publishing the

voices of poor people around the

world, we want to change the way

people think about poverty. We

want justice.

To order books: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/list?lang=iso-8859-1

OXFAM in the NEWS HONG KONG: A Million People’s

Stories – which refers to the one

million poor people in Hong Kong, or

one out of every seven people – aired

for five consecutive nights on prime-

time television in April. Oxfam was

a consultant to the TV programme.

Among the million stories is a single-

parent family living on welfare, a

family from Mainland China who relies on low-quality, almost-expired food, and

a child who refuses to tell anyone that his family receives government aid. Several

celebrities also joined the television programme.

MOKUNGOxfam Hong Kong publishes this quarterly

magazine in Traditional Chinese. Mokung, which

means both “no poverty” and “infinity”, high-

lights a different aspect of development in each

issue. The Editor is Tung Tsz-kwan. The March

2008 edition looks at the poverty news poll in

Hong Kong.

To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore

/?lang=big5

Mokung is online at www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/category?cid=1017&lang=big5

ONEO.N.E – Oxfam News E-magazine – is upload-

ed monthly at www.oxfam.org.hk/one.

To receive a copy in your inbox, please sub-

scribe – it is free.

To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/one/subscribe.html

CO

VER

: Alfo

ns P

oon

17th Floor, 28 Marble Road, Northpoint, Hong KongO.N.E is also on-line:

www.oxfam.org.hk/one//Editor: Madeleine Marie Slavick emagazine@oxfam.org.hk

Hong Kong

HONG KONG CLIMATESix action groups call for carbon dioxide emissions to be capped in the Air

Pollution Control Ordinance: right now, the Hong Kong SAR Government does

not regulate CO2 emissions of its two power companies, which account for about

70% of all CO2 emissions. Please add your voice to this campaign (http://write-a-

letter.greenpeace.org/407) – if action is not taken soon, now, Hong Kong winters

may disappear within just 20 years, according to The Hong Kong Observatory.

Oxfam Hong Kong is also calling to stop climate change, to stop the poverty

it is bringing around the world: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/

category?cid=53988&lang=iso-8859-1.

VOICE

Every day, Oxfam Hong Kong

works alongside hundreds of groups

around the world, from small NGOs

to international bodies, from gov-

ernment departments of developing

countries to community groups based

in Hong Kong. Here are 30 ‘partner

organisations’ that we are support-

ing for the first time. The location

indicates where the project is being

implemented.

INTERNATIONAL•Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Bangla-desh •Centre for Natural Resources Studies, Bangladesh •Daliyon Ka Dagriya, India •Helal Uddin and Associates, Bangladesh •Help Age International, Mozambique •Institute of Development Affairs, Bangladesh •Intercooperation, Bangladesh •Kadtuntaya Foundation, Philippines •People's Oriented Programme Implementation, Bangladesh •Reliant Women and Development Organiza- tion, Bangladesh

HONG KONG•enrich •H15 Concerned Group •Hong Kong Community Museum Project •Hong Kong Sustainable Agriculture Association •Tase Hong Kong

CHINA (MAINLAND)•Ning County Agricultural and Stockbreeding Bureau, Gansu •Research Center for Women’s Development, Nanjing Normal University, Jiangsu •Environmental Association of Green Kun-ming, Yunnan •Maqin County Education Department, Qinghai •School of Educational Science and Management, Yunnan Normal University •Gansu UNESCO Association •Lighthouse Project Volunteer Federation, Zhongshan University, Guangdong •School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai •China Associa-tion for Promotion of Compulsory Education •Guangzhou Green Point, Guangdong •Weixin County Poverty Alleviation Office, Yunnan •Cili County Charity Federation, Hunan •Be-In Rural Community Development Consulting Center, Guizhou •Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Guangxi University for Nationalities •Education Weekly, Renmin Zhengxie Bao

finances they often resort to borrow-

ing money at a high interest rate and

buying on credit; many are perma-

nently in debt. Few have a savings plan

and too often migrants go home af-

ter years of hard work abroad to find

that they are no better off than when

they started. enrich’s financial literacy

training equips clients with the knowl-

edge and motivation to calculate their

financial situation, make and imple-

ment a budget and a savings plan, get

out of debt and have a greater say in

family decisions. The training on per-

sonal development helps women as-

sert themselves and voice their needs

and opinions effectively.”

In this edition of O.N.E, we high-

light enrich, a new non-profit in Hong

Kong which provides practical training

for women, ethnic minorities, migrant

workers and domestic workers.

“For migrants and low-income

people in Hong Kong, money is often

their greatest concern,” they write on

their website (www.enrichhk.org).

“Living on a low budget in an expen-

sive city driven by consumerism is ex-

tremely challenging. There are endless

competing demands on these wom-

en’s incomes both to sustain their lives

in Hong Kong and to support their ex-

tended families back home. With little

training or support in managing their