Export Impact For Good
The International Trade Center (ITC) is a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. Its mission is to build and promote businesses in developing countries, assist in becoming more competitive in global markets, speed economic development, and further the achievements of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It now has more than 40 years of hands-on trade and business experience in the developing world, and a very focused approach to export-led poverty reduction. Their slogan, “Export Impact for Good.”
For ITC, the “true story of development” is the small, low-cost project that aims to give poor people “a hand to get started on the ladder of success.” After a modest level of support and funding, they are on their own path to self-sufficient living, and their success is exponential in impact for the immediate community. Three examples:
• Lifestyle products, derived from a local plant of the Eastern Cape in South Africa, are helping create jobs in one of that country’s poorer regions. Expert help from ITC, funding from an innovative public-private partnership and guaranteed commitments from overseas markets, will raise some 1,000 local people out of poverty.
• Brazilian tourist resort provides job opportunities to surrounding, impoverished areas: like a low-cost, organic waste recycling project – based on a local invention, and the sale of products made by local communities – leading to a significant rise in incomes.
• In India, rural populations are being lifted out of poverty through a program of selling locally produced spices and aromatic herbs on the international market. In just four years, exports grew seven fold and the average income increased five fold, benefiting well over 2,000 people.
The ITC article “New Jobs for Poor Communities Through Trade” gives the full story of the above projects.
– Mary Purcell
Source: ITC
Photo: Independent.co.uk
