Traidcraft Exchange's work in Africa started in Malawi in 2000, with a large-scale project to help Malawian enterprises to improve their business performance and have a positive impact on poverty.
We then expanded our work to East Africa, focusing on Kenya and Tanzania. In 2004 we made a strategic decision to concentrate our efforts on East Africa as we felt, by focusing our efforts and resources on one region, we could have greater impact.
In April 2005, we opened an office in Nairobi, Kenya, to further broaden and deepen our impact in the region. We share this office with two other organisations - Shared Interest, a cooperative lending society that provides financing to fair trade producers, and COFTA (Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa), a network of African fair trade organisations. This shared "fair trade office" offers exciting opportunities for working with the fair trade movement in East Africa.
Why do we work in East Africa?
The scale of human need in East Africa is huge.
Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and is ranked 162nd on the Human Development Index out of 177 countries in the world. Kenya is more economically developed but has the greatest concentration of poor and, despite recent democratic gains, little progress towards international development targets is being made.
We have chosen to focus our work on key product sectors which are important in the East African context and provide employment for many thousands of poor producers. These include tea, cotton, crafts, and honey.
In Kenya we also have a project focusing on the dairy sector, a vital industry in the country that not only provides employment for small-scale farmers and milk traders, but also provides an important source of nutrition for the poor.
Our current projects in East Africa
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Bee Fair, Tanzania This project is restoring the livelihoods of beekeepers in the Tabora region of Tanzania, who were left floundering when their cooperative collapsed.
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Mainstreaming African Crafts This innovative pilot project aims to improve the livelihoods of African crafts producers, by developing a producer-owned brand under which African crafts will be promoted in the European market.
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Plan Bee, Kenya This project aims to improve the quality of life for small-scale beekeepers in some of the poorest areas in Kenya.
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