Sustainable Development and Empowerment through Fair Trade - A Minor Field Study of the Impacts from Fair Trade Participation on Sri Lankan Producers and Workers

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Fair Trade is a growing international movement with the aim to empower disadvantaged producers and workers in the developing world and to promote sustainable development. With an understanding of the increased economic globalization as unfair, Fair Trade seeks to make the relationships in the international trade more equitable. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the impacts from Fair Trade upon producers and workers as to examine if Fair Trade does promote sustainable development and empowerment. In order to do this, theories of development, sustainable development and empowerment have been used to define these multi-dimensional concepts in the theoretical framework. The empirical material was gathered during a two months long stay in Sri Lanka. Three Fair Trade Organizations; a tea plantation, a cinnamon farm and a garment factory were visited. During these visits focus group discussions with producers and workers were conducted. The results from this study show that there are many impacts from Fair Trade participation such as higher incomes, better housing conditions, greater knowledge about one?s legal rights and increased participation in decision-making. Drawing from the identified imp...