The Millennium Development Goals are 8 international development goals that all 192 UN member states have agreed to achieve by 2015, just 5 years away. The 8 MDG’s are:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for development
In August 2010 Pachacuti was Highly Commended in the International category of the National Awards for Excellence for our impact on Millennium Development Goals. However, many individuals, businesses and world leaders are not doing as much as they could to ensure that we achieve these targets within the next five years. This is why the Fashion FT100 has been collecting signatures to urge world leaders to act now.
Fair Trade is at a disadvantage, competing with conventional fashion companies on an uneven playing field. This is because conventional companies don’t pay close to the living wage or work to sustainable environmental standards. If we wait for policy to change, the MDG’s will never be achieved in time.
The petition called upon world leaders at the MDG conference in New York to:
1. Drop the duty on Fair Trade fashion imports
2. Give Fair Trade fashion organisations financial and technical assistance
3. Procure Fair Trade clothing and textile products for the Public Sector
Ben Ramsden from Pants to Poverty and creator of the record-breaking World's Biggest Pants which you can see in the photo, took approximately 2000 signed petitions to the UN MDG summit in New York.
At the end of next week I will be back in Ecuador, meeting with all of my producers and hearing at first hand the difference Fair Trade makes. It is not just the payment of a fair wage which makes a difference, but regular work which fits in with their agricultural cycles, training, improved health and safety, better education for their children and sustainable environmental practices. Fair Trade impacts on so many of the Millennium Development Goals and makes a tangible impact on poverty reduction.