Next year will be the UN international year of cooperatives and as producer cooperatives lie at the heart of Fairtrade, 2012 should proove to be another good year that will see Fair Trade Towns go from strength to strength.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a happy and successful New Year!

Bruce Crowther
Fairtrade Towns Advisor
Fairtrade Foundation

1. Beyond 1,000 Fair Trade Towns – 5th International Fair Trade Towns conference in Malmö, Sweden.
The 5th annual Fair Trade Towns conference was held in the beautiful city of Malmö, which 5 years earlier became the first Fairtrade City in Sweden. The conference also took place in the same week Garstang in the UK celebrated 10 years since being awarded its world’s first Fair Trade Town status by the Fairtrade Foundation.

Over 200 delegates from 23 countries explored the way forward now that we have moved beyond 1,000 Fair Trade Towns. Joyce and Ebenezer from Kenya and Ghana respectively, provided the essential voice of the producers, which served to remind us why the Fair Trade Towns movement was founded and continues to exist today.

Developing direct links between Fair Trade Towns in the North and producers in the South was a topic that attracted much support and interest during the conference. Walter Alifo from Ghana spoke about how New Koforidua became the first Fair Trade Town in Africa, following ten years of promoting Fairtrade alongside their friends in Garstang, the world’s first Fair Trade Town (see below).

The conference also saw the international Fair Trade Towns movement unite behind a joint statement calling for trade justice that will be presented to the European Parliament and the Rio +20 UN conference in 2012.

On behalf of Fair Trade Towns everywhere I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the hosts of the conference from Fairtrade Sweden and the City of Malmö and especially the Deputy Mayor of Malmö, Lari Pitka-Kangas for his warm and compassionate participation throughout the conference.

Full reports from the conference will appear on this website soon.

2. Fair Trade Towns in the South
In December 2008 coffee producers in Alfenas came together to declare themselves as the first Fair Trade Town in Brazil. The following year farmers in Perez Zeledon, Costa Rica declared their town a Fair Trade Town and as part of the 1,000 Fair Trade Towns celebrations in June this year the people of New Koforidua, Ghana declared themselves the first Fair Trade Town in Africa. In each case the five goals used by Fair Trade Towns in the North to promote the sale of fair trade products were adapted to promote fair trade in a predominantly producer community.

Although these declarations in the South present many difficult challenges ahead, all agree that we should embrace and welcome them into the international Fair Trade Towns family. The first task is to develop flexible guidelines based on the five goals that will enable Fair Trade Town campaigns to set up in any country across the globe. There are already moves to start up a national Fair Trade Towns campaign in Brazil where the FAIRTRADE Mark will soon be launched.

3. An East-West-South-North partnership to promote fair trade and the Millennium Development Goals
In 2011 the Agenda 21 office in Hanover initiated the project “Aware & Fair’ – city games and campaigns as a local reaction to the Millennium Development Goals”. This formed part of an EU program to raise awareness on international development policy linked to the MDG’s through specific action such as Fair Trade.

Hanover’s partners included their twin towns of Poznan (Poland) and Blantyre (Malawi) as well as Litomerice (Czech Republic) and Miskolc (Hungary) which had been involved in the international city network ICLEI for sustainable development for many years.

One of the aims of this 2 year project is to establish and expand the fair trade market in all the cities, in particular for products from Malawi e.g. nuts, tea, rice. This gained the support of Fairtrade Germany and the Polish Fair Trade Association as important cooperation partners.

The promotion of fair trade within the project has already helped contribute to the following achievements:
• Litomerice becoming one of the first Fair Trade Towns in the Czech Republic earlier this year.
• The opening of the first Fair Trade shop in Poland on 6th December.
• The launch of the Fair Trade Town campaign in Poznan expected to become the first Fair Trade Town in Poland in November 2012.
• The future launch of Fair Trade Towns in Hungary with Miskolc expected to become their first Fair Trade Town.
• During the project seminar in Blantyre in October the Fair Trade Towns concept was presented to representatives from the Local Authority and FLO certified small growers associations who showed a strong interest in developing a Fair Trade Town campaign in Blantyre.

Contact
Landeshauptstadt Hannover
Agenda 21-office
Silvia Hesse
Trammplatz 2
30159 Hannover
Tel.  ++49 511  168  4 5078
agenda21@hannover-stadt.de
www.awarefair.org

4. The world’s first International Fair Trade Visitor Centre opens in Garstang, UK
On Monday 21st November, almost ten years to the day since Garstang was awarded its status as the world’s fir Fair Trade Town, The FIG Tree opened in Garstang as the world’s first international Fair Trade visitor Centre. The FIG Tree will celebrate Garstang’s unique achievement and the international Fair Trade Towns movement by providing:

• A Fair Trade Exhibition - exploring the four interrelated themes; Fair Trade, The British Atlantic Slave Trade and its abolition, Quaker Heritage in North West England where Quakers were founded and Chocolate.

• A Fair Trade Café and Gift Shop - providing a community hub for both residents and visitors to Garstang using our triangular link with New Koforidua, the first Fair Trade Town in Africa and Media, PA, America’s first Fair Trade Town.

• Chocolate Making Events - using cocoa from New Koforidua and live video links.

• Fair Trade Way - Fairtrade refreshments, souvenirs and information for ramblers at the start of the Fair Trade Way; the world’s first long-distance fair trade heritage trail that links Fairtrade Towns between Garstang and Keswick.

This is a great opportunity for all  interested to share our experiences of the Impact of Fairtrade in our Communities since we are Fairtrade certified in 1996.

This is the first time we go to Europe to share how fair trade makes a positive impact in our communities of Perez Zeledon.   All this is thanks to the support and efforts of organizations and people like you who campaign for Southern producers to improve the living conditions of producers and their Communities.

Bruce Crowther
Fairtrade Towns Advisor
Fairtrade Foundation

1. 1,000 Fair Trade Towns and counting

Following the 1,000 Fair Trade Town’s joint declarations across the world in June, at the time of writing there are 1014 Fair Trade Towns in 22 countries across all six major continents. International Fairtrade Cities now include; London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen, Oslo, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver and Wellington in New Zealand.

Find out more about the 1,000 Fair Trade Towns celebrations here.

Read letters of support for the 1,000 Fair Trade Towns from Mr Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, Ms Mercedes Bresso, President of the Committee of the Regions, and Mr Staffan Nilsson, President of the European Economic and Social Committee here.

Read the response to the ‘Make Trade Fair’ petition from Mr Ciolos, EU Commissioner for Agriculture here.

2. ‘Beyond 1,000 Fair Trade Towns’ – 5th International Fair Trade Towns Conference in Malmö, Sweden on 19– 20 November 2011

For 2011 the International Fair Trade Towns conference will explore how we move forward “Beyond 1,000 Fair Trade Towns”. Come to Malmö on 19-20 November to meet committed people from other Fair Trade Towns around the globe. Learn, discuss and get inspired!

On Friday evening there will be a get together and pre-registration before the conference starts at 9.30am on Saturday 19th November.
The conference will finish at 3pm on Sunday 20th November.
Attendance at the conference is free to Fair Trade Town representatives travelling from outside Sweden. Lunch is included as well as dinner on Saturday evening.

The conference will be hosted by Fairtrade Sweden together with the City of Malmö, the first Fairtrade City in Sweden.

Registration: Online at www.fairtrade.se or contact your national Fair Trade Towns coordinator.
Registration opens on 2nd of September and closes 8th of October.
For further details of the conference contact:
Linda Ålrud
linda.alrud@fairtrade.se
Emma Börjesson
emma.borjesson@malmo

3. Cross-border Fairtrade Towns

In January 2010 Hadrian’s Wall along the English – Scottish border became the first cross-border Fairtrade Zone with nine local authorities (including one in Scotland) declaring their support for Fairtrade. But it won’t be the last!

Since 2005 there has been a grassroots movement of people along the German, French and Luxembourg borders that have been working together to share common interests. When Saarbrücken became the first Fairtrade Town in Germany in 2009 they decided to direct their cooperation towards becoming a transnational Fairtrade Region. They hope to gain Fairtrade Region status in 2012 and there are presently two models being considered:

1.) Quattro Pole – A trinational network of four cities: Luxemburg, Metz, Saarbrücken and Trier.
Saarbrücken and Trier in Germany have already achieved Fairtrade Town status while Metz in France and Luxemburg are striving towards it. Once this is achieved they hope to get the Quattro Pole to sign an official common Charta.

2.) Euro district – A binational network between the Borough of Saarbrücken and the Northern Department of Moselle.
In December 2010 the Meirs Assembly took a unanimous deliberation for the Euro district to commit itself to Fairtrade. Since then a few local authorities on both sides, French and German are striving to meet the five goals.

4. Fair Trade Towns in Central Eastern Europe

September will see the declaration of the first Fair Trade Town in Central Eastern Europe when Litomerice will be nominated as the first Fair Trade Town in the Czech Republic with Vestin soon to follow.

Gdansk and Poznan in Poland are also running Fair Trade Town campaigns and Poznan hopes to gain status in 2012. The campaign in Hungary is still in the early stages but Miskolc is currently running a campaign. This is another example of cross-border collaboration as Germany’s Fairtrade City of Hannover is an EU project partner with Litomerice, Poznan and Miskolc. We wish them all every success!