Official Mission Statement

WFTO’s mission is to enable producers to improve their livelihoods and communities through Fair Trade. WFTO is the global network and advocate for Fair Trade, ensuring producer voices are heard. The interest of producers, especially small farmers and artisans, is the main focus in all the policies, governance, structures and decision making within the WFTO.

Year of Establishment 1989

Key Features

• WFTO is a democratic organisation with members governance. It is the only global network whose members represent the Fair Trade chain from production to sale.

• The Fair Trade Principles include: economic and social aspects, conditions of trade, ILO labour standards and protection of the environment, among other aspects.

• WFTO operates the Guarantee System (GS), which was launched in mid-2013. Trading members are obliged to follow the procedure to assure that they comply with the Fair Trade Principles. The assurance which WFTO gives is based on “second part verification”; that is to say, the organisation itself checks compliance of its members with the Principles (employing external auditors). A “third party” system check, under which an independent third party will verify whether the GS is a reliable system, is expected to be in place by 2018.

• Trading members are called Fair Trade Organisations (FTO’s). They must be engaged with Fair Trade as a producer, trader or supportive organisation.

• WFTO Guaranteed members can apply the WFTO label on products which they sell. The label assures that the product is “made by a guaranteed Fair Trade organisation”. The organisation is certified; not the product.

• The WFTO Standard and Guarantee System Committee, established in January 2014, gathers a group of experts who are responsible for overseeing the further development of the WFTO Guarantee System and make recommendations for Approval and Sanction of WFTO Members.

• The WFTO Appeals Committee is composed of “…WFTO Associates, Honorary members, senior Fair Trade retirees and interested outsiders…” and was established in May 2015.

• The Fair Trade Accountability Watch (FTAW) is a complaints system which allows any person or organisation to flag non-compliance with the Fair Trade principles. WFTO assures that such alerts are followed up according to a standard procedure.

• Advocacy is another way in which WFTO promotes Fair Trade. There is a joint Advocacy Office in Brussels (the FTAO), which focuses on influencing (European) policy-makers. It is supported, managed and funded by the whole movement, as represented by Fairtrade International and WFTO.

Facts and Figures

The WFTO has over 375 member organisations, in more than 70 countries. It operates across 5 regions - Africa and Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Pacific -, with elected global and regional Boards. The main office is located in the Netherlands.

By end 2015, 50 members had already achieved the status of 'Guaranteed Fair Trade organisation'.

WFTO members' total turnover or income (based on latest financial reports available), as of Jan 2016 was EUR 777.987.429.

The WFTO Fair Trade Standard is undergoing its first major revision during 2016 and early 2017. It will continue to be revised on a periodical basis (every 4 or 5 years).

可持续网站对该标准进行了环境、社会、管理、质量和伦理五个维度的分析，该标准在社会维度占比30%，环境维度占比47%，管理维度占比19%，质量维度占比3%，伦理维度占比1%。具体数据及分析请点击以下链接进行查看： Click to see the standards analysis on ITC Sustainability website.

https://sustainabilitymap.org/review-standards?short_list=76