Based in Nairobi, Lilian has spent the past nine years at Fairtrade Africa working on human rights and social issues. As Social Compliance and Risk Manager there, she and her team trained and supported producer organisations in 33 countries on Fairtrade Standards and certification and the issues of child protection, workers’ rights, gender and the inclusion of young people, among other things. As a gender lead at Fairtrade Africa, Lilian particularly supported flower producers to review gender and anti-sexual harassment policies and also built the capacity of gender committees at flower farms to respond to gender-related risks. She played a key role in supporting the scale-up of Fairtrade Africa’s Women’s School of Leadership – originally started with cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire – to flower workers in Ethiopia.

1.    You worked with producers for the past nine years with Fairtrade Africa, including on challenging issues like child labour and improving protections and opportunities for women – as farmers, as workers, and as community leaders. What’s the biggest insight you gained?

My greatest insight has been to contextualise approaches in addressing social issues. One approach or methodology may not work in different cultural and socioeconomic contexts. If one wants effectiveness, they must understand the context and make proposals that align with the context.

For example, during the implementation of the Women’s School of Leadership programme for flower workers in Ethiopia, we had to make changes to fit the hired labour context, to accommodate availability of waged workers, and their management of income-generating activities. Also, the implementation of gender interventions would vary between patriarchal and matriarchal communities; in matriarchal communities, focus would be more on power dynamics and less on ownership of factors of production (land).

2.    Fairtrade has robust requirements across our multiple Fairtrade Standards that deal with human rights and other social protection issues, and organisations are independently audited by FLOCERT on these requirements on a regular basis. But we know audits don’t catch everything. What else does Fairtrade do to tackle these issues, many of which are deeply entrenched?

Beyond standards, Fairtrade’s approach seeks to address the underlying causes that drive exploitation, a primary one being poverty. We set minimum prices so producers have a safety net when market prices fall. For some products, we also set voluntary Living Income Reference Prices and Living Wage Reference Prices so that farmers and workers can make progress toward sustainable and dignified livelihoods. The Fairtrade Premium, the extra amount on top of the selling price that producers are paid for every sale on Fairtrade terms, provides funds that farmers and workers themselves decide how to invest, whether to add value to their business, or to benefit the whole community, like a well or a school.

On top of that, Fairtrade works to build the capacity of farmers and workers to recognise, identify, mitigate, and remediate social risks, and in the long term, to prevent such risks from recurring. Fairtrade’s programmes of training and support in these areas present an opportunity for commercial actors and other stakeholders to play their part in addressing supply chain risks through funding, partnerships and co-implementation.

An example of this is a project with wine grape producers in South Africa, funded as part of a larger partnership with the Finnish government called Dignified Opportunities Nurtured through Trade and Sustainability (DONUTS) that focuses on workers’ rights. The project in South Africa aims to create better collective bargaining agreements, increase dialogue with rightsholders, and improve relationships between trade unions and management on 26 Fairtrade certified wine grape farms in the Western Cape Province, which employ 28,000 workers.

Apart from the ultimate realisation of ethical production and trading through the respect of human and environmental rights, the project and programme interventions eventually contribute back to compliance with the Fairtrade Standards requirements as well, among other benefits such as potential market appeal.  

3.   Given these issues are so complex, what place does a certification like Fairtrade have, and how big a difference can we make? 

Indeed, most of these social issues are complex and they remain prevalent. But that does not mean that we fold up and stop our interventions. When we look back, we can see the difference that we have made over time: there has been increased perception and appreciation of the fact that trade must be done in a way that respects human rights and more particularly protect the rights of vulnerable groups such as children, women and other vulnerable adults. School attendance goes up when school classrooms are improved, and the Fairtrade Premium supports producer organisations to do just that. Women who have taken part in our various schools of leadership around the world say they’ve gained confidence, been able to diversify into new micro businesses, and have moved things forward in terms of starting women’s committees or helping their cooperative to adopt a gender policy.

While change takes time and there’s still a long way to go, such forms of impact encourage us to remain committed to a rights-based and collaborative approach.

4.    What’s your vision about where Fairtrade will be in three years’ time when it comes to addressing social issues? Any different approaches or promising practices that you’d like to scale up, for instance?

First of all, it’s worthwhile to note that Fairtrade has an Act to Protect policy which provides a confidential channel for anyone to report suspected rights violations (socialcompliance@fairtrade.net), and which specifies a process for us to follow up and take action for the protection of the individual or individuals alleged to be harmed. This is separate from follow up related to investigating if Fairtrade Standards have been violated. It involves the relevant Fairtrade producer network informing local agencies and connecting with local resources, as well as identifying the need for further training or support for Fairtrade producer organisations in the area.

Even as we continue to handle cases that arise (remediation), we need to focus on scaling up prevention: in an ideal situation, violations should be not occurring. How then can we minimise violations (prevention, mitigation) with a goal to have fewer and fewer cases in the long term? That said, it’s important to note that identifying cases isn’t in itself a bad thing – it actually means that monitoring systems are working. What is important is that remediation is effective, while at the same time prevention efforts are being seriously invested in.

Because these are supply chain issues, not just farmer or worker issues, they need to be tackled as such. We want to scale up collaboration with partners, including business, governments, and NGOs. We have already adjusted several of our Standards to incorporate human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) requirements, and we specify that traders must support the producers they buy from when it comes to the producers’ HREDD action plans. We’ve also created channels for other companies and partners to invest in programmes that tackle specific issues, like our Child Labour and Forced Labour Prevention and Remediation Programme. We want to build more on this model.

It’s also one of my priorities to work closely with different teams and organisations within Fairtrade to synergise efforts. This can mean consulting on future revisions to our Standards, developing programmes, and supporting our advocacy efforts when it comes to new legislation that can raise the bar for everyone. The work that we all do is noble but not easy, and it only makes sense to work closely in realising our vision.

5.    Do you have a favourite Fairtrade product you can’t do without?

This is a hard choice to make among Fairtrade flowers, cocoa and coffee. I will go with coffee but my sweet-toothed daughter (still) will go with Fairtrade chocolate. Then we both align on the flowers!