The IFAT conference is held in a big hall inside the Hotel Impala in Arusha, Tanzania. The proceedings begin with a formal tone, with local government officials coming to endorse the proceedings. There is a dignity and seriousness to the African leadership of the fair trade movement who have come from all around Africa from Ethiopia to Cameroon. The group is about half women and half men, which is a reflection of the changes that are happening in African society as women take more leadership and financial independence. Some of the organizations have been building the movement for almost 25 years, and others are new young producers who are just beginning their efforts.

This is the first regional conference of the African Fair Trade Crafts movement, and the agenda is a combination of concerns specific to African handicraft producers and international fair trade issues. The first topic that really gets the entire group engaged is a presentation titled “Craft Crisis in Africa” from Fred the Director of Undugu one of the most experienced organizations in Africa. He outlines the reality that while the handicraft import market in the US and Europe is growing at rates of upwards of 10%, the craft export for African producers are falling. Particularly, he focuses on specific traditional crafts like wood carving where exports to Europe have dropped by 75%, and African textiles where the exports have also dropped significantly. He then describes the effect this has had on fair trade producers where from the African perspective it feels like the fair trade movement has moved towards focusing on commodities to the exclusion of crafts. The fair trade commodities market has grown by more than 50% and the fair trade crafts market has dropped by 30% or more.

This then leads into a challenging discussion about the causes:

- flooding of international markets with mass produced products from China that copy  African designs
- the lack of innovation in design of traditional African crafts into more modern styled products
- the lack of feedback from buyers in the Northern markets regarding trend information and not working closely with African producers
- the lack of infrastructure in Africa that makes the internet, transportation, and other challenges more acute than for organizations than in Asia resulting in excessive overhead costs for African products.

The discussion gravitates towards creating solutions. The tone is one of taking responsibility and not blaming external factors for the problems. They are determined to figure out how to improve and compete to grow the market. A strong opinion that surfaces is the craft movement needs to focus on moving the products to a wider audience in the mainstream markets, similar to what commodities have done. The assessment is that while selling to fair trade stores and world shops has been a positive way to help producers, it is not growing as fast as the supply. Also the feeling is that there is not enough of a market focus in these channels which is why the product development has not increased as fast as the producers who work with mainstream markets. This opinion strongly endorses the World of Good approach in the United States, and there is significant support for our efforts. This also leads into a discussion about the importance of creating clear standards including quantitative measures that would lead to a craft certification process which would allow many types of retailers to carry fair trade crafts. This is the perfect lead in for my presentation on the calculator!

When I do the presentation of the fair trade wage guide (formerly known as “the calculator”), the audience is really focused. I start out by explaining that World of Good built this tool to address the concern that every organization has its own way of ensuring “fair wages in the local context”. We have created this simple tool to help ensure that there is a floor price method under all fair trade crafts. I explain that we are presenting the tool to get feedback from the African fair trade producer community and its usefulness in helping artisans price product and negotiate with buyers. The most important part of the presentation is when I explain that the idea of creating a floor price for all baskets around the world, or all bracelets around the world is impossible and this has been the barrier to the idea of a certification of fair trade crafts. Now, we are trying to shift the idea to say that the one important input to every fair trade craft is the time of the artisan and our goal is to create method that ensures that this one common input is always valued fairly.

We walk through an example in the calculator, inputting the time of production, and the purchase price, and seeing how the artisan wage compares to local indicators like minimum wage.  People are amazed when I explain that this is a free tool available on the internet right away. They are also very impressed when they see the work that Holly and Audrey have done to collect data from around the world.

There are also lots of questions: how do you assess the time that it took to make something if a whole group of people made it (like many carvings) or when you have many steps in the process (like soapstone)? What do you do when you live in a region where the internet connectivity is very slow or none? Are there better goals for each region than the minimum wage which could be more appropriate or aspirational? What if the product will not sell for this price, how does this effect design? We begin a process to talk through this discussion where there are not simple answers. The general consensus is that while there are still many issues to resolve the wage guide is a very important step forward and the African leadership is resounding in its support! More than 20 organizations sign up to test their products, they are all curious to see if their products are meeting the goal or not. I explain that Audrey will be calling and emailing them in the next few weeks to get them started on testing their products.

As the day progresses, there are other interesting presentations on production, accounting, finance, etc. There are also discussions about the best way to build a south-south market, maybe a chain of fair trade shops inside Africa to grow the local market and tourist market, and then creative ideas from the Dutch World Shops on how they are redesigning their stores. The general feeling here is that fair trade handmade goods are evolving and the African organizations are excited to move forward and create more opportunity for disadvantaged producers through trade.

One of the women who impressed me the most is Consta from Kenya with an organization call CEMA which focuses on helping small producers to develop products. She is young, smart, also an MBA, and with boundless energy and passion for what she is doing with a very market focus – she is the Kenyan equivalent of World of Good! I cannot wait to work with her and benefit some of the projects. There is one project they have worked on with World Widlife Fund to develop certified sustainable wood carvings, and these items would be perfect for our line. My personal favorite is a group on a small island off the coast of Africa where due to the tides around the continent, the beaches were being littered with flip-flops washing up from all over Asia. Consta’s organization with WWF helped develop a process where the groups create amazing products out of the recycled flip-flops! This includes jewelry, bowls, and even trash cans!

Then I met a really bright woman from Ethiopia named Mona who runs an organization called Fair Trade Eygpt. She is incredibly focused, determined and has built and organization that is helping 38 artisan organizations around Egypt. Right away I find a set of handloomed scarves in beautiful striped patterns that will be perfect for our fall line (similar to the Sarwan Stole that we do now from Nepal). She shows me some amazing embroidery, beaded jewelry, and beautiful handbags in cotton. I am impressed with the level of quality and product design that they have generated with their team. One of the things that stands out to me is that she tells me that she feels that the best handmade goods from Eygpt are never getting out to the market because the tourist market buys simple stereotypical craft items, and so the producers make these, but the beautiful traditional crafts are being lost. We start planning how to work together to bring these beautiful items to our customers.

I also meet Ruth who runs Beacon of Hope, a project helping women who are HIV+ to earn an income and pay for their medical care, and she has laid out a whole display of the beautiful products they are making including oven mits and aprons from Kikoy (a traditional Kenyan fabric), handwoven placemats, and matching napkins and runners. She has never done any exports before, and I hook her up with Consta who is going to help her think about how to structure her business to prepare for export markets.

I meet other groups from around Africa. For some, I have the difficult task of telling them honestly what they need to improve in order to be able to work with World of Good. Sometimes, I have to give them feedback on the quality of the products, the styles, their overhead costs, and other aspects of export trade. Sometimes, I also have tell them that while they have beautiful products, we just can not buy more of that particular product type or add a new partner that makes the same product (like soapstone) until we grow the market  and add more customers to World of Good and we develop new designs. I am completely re-motivated to the importance of my job in the United States building customer relationships and getting more stores! The more kiosks we have, the more communities we can help. And when I am here, I can really feel what a difference every single kiosk makes, since if it does well, each kiosk allows us to place about $2,500 – $5,000 of orders.

I have also had the opportunity to meet and engage with some of the godmothers (like Carol Wills) and godfathers of the fair trade movement in Europe. It has been amazing to hear their perspectives on the way the movement’s history and how they grew the European market.

They are all very interested in World of Good, both for our mainstream market approach in the US and for the World of Good Development Organization’s fair trade wage guide. They have all given their endorsement to our effort which is a big honor.

Three days have flown by in a whirlwind of meetings, discussions, and product reviews, with days packed from 8 in the morning to the time I call into the US office at 10pm, and I still feel I can not get it all done here!

The other amazing thing has been that while I have been here pushing things forward, the team at home has been getting so many important things done. I feel so lucky to have such a great team on every side of me, which is why I have the total confidence to stand up and say that we are building more opportunity for these artisans because I know that we can do it!

Tomorrow, I am planning to take a couple of days off and go on safari with my father. We are going to Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater to see the natural beauty of Africa. This will be one of the most interesting weekends I have had in a long time.