Fair Trade to Fight Poverty

According to a case study of coffee producers in Bolivia, fair trade has the potential to make a significant impact on the anti-poverty effort. The report goes into detail about the effects of fair trade. For instance, fair trade has the potential to reduce poverty by providing competition at the level of the intermeriaries and enabling capacity-building. As a result of its poverty-reducing impact, it may have a "positive influence on conflict prevention by contributing to a reverse of cultural inequalities." Fair trade has also influenced several trends in the non-fair trade market, and thus, it may have indirectly been responsible for reducing poverty for some producers in this market. You can read the summary and the full report here (PDF).