Framework for African Inclusive & Resilient Trade with Rights, Accountability, Development, and Ecology
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As a forward-looking initiative of the FIDEP Foundation, FAIRTRADE AFRICA 2.0 is conceived as a progressive agenda that resonates with global movements for fair, green, and inclusive economies. Rather than operating in isolation, the program is deliberately to contribute to ongoing sustainability campaigns and UNEP frameworks, and mobilizing the voices of rights-holders into policy spaces such as AMCEN. It seeks to ensure that Africa’s trade transformation aligns with progressive values, global debates on justice, ecological integrity, and human rights. It also seeks to reinforce Africa’s voice in multilateral fora while embedding continental priorities within wider struggles for systemic reform of trade and sustainability governance. 
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FAIRTRADE AFRICA 2.0 is designed as a progressive agenda that embeds Africa’s trade transformation within the wider struggle for social justice, ecological sustainability, and inclusive development. Central to this approach is the recognition that ecosystems must be treated as living systems with intrinsic value, and that trade policy must advance renewable energy access, dignified work, and climate resilience as inseparable goals. 
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To achieve this vision, the program seeks partnerships with progressive regional and global campaigns that share a commitment to advancing fair, green, and rights-based trade, and invites collaboration to amplify Africa’s voice in supporting environmental Processes & Global Treaties including:
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Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD): Trade for a Healthy Planet and Forests and Trade Integrity Campaigns support implementation of Targets 5, 14, and 15 (e.g. reducing deforestation, biodiversity loss) by ensuring trade policies under AfCFTA do not incentivize forest clearance or ecosystem damage.
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UNEP’s Minamata Convention & Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm (BRS) Treaties: Through Rights and Dignity for Workers, we monitor and advocate against trade in harmful chemicals or waste, ensure safe practices in trade-linked industries, and support treaty compliance via worker education and regulatory reforms.
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UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) & SDG processes: The program feeds into voluntary national reviews (VNRs) with data and case studies from the Trade Futures Review and African Trade Justice Atlas, especially for SDGs 1, 8, 12, 13, and 15.
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FAIRTRADE AFRICA 2.0 extends its methodology to map trade supply chains beyond consumer goods to include raw materials and environmental externalities, while also co-developing monitoring tools to address illegal logging, collusion in trade permits, and revenue transparency in forest-adjacent trade corridors. At the same time, the program’s strong labor rights orientation provides a platform to examine the health impacts of trade agreements (ranging from pollution to occupational hazards) and to advocate for the inclusion of health-safe trade clauses, including safeguards both people and ecosystems. This process is reinforced through our Trade Futures Review Tool.
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TRADE FUTURES REVIEW (TFR) TOOL: A Biennial Consultative Set of Processes Tracking and Shaping Trade, Sustainability and Human Rights in Africa
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The Trade Futures Review (TFR) is structured as participatory soft power tool, a platform that sets the tone of debate, frames new standards for just trade and influences both continental and global policy thinking. As a flagship biennial report of the FIDEP Foundation, the TFR is strategically positioned to shape trade discourse while feeding into UNEP processes and multilateral dialogues, providing evidence, narratives and pathways that foreground justice, ecology, and human rights.
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Why This Matters Now
Together, these three subcomponents make the TFR a living intellectual toolkit: one that challenges extractivism, reimagines agriculture, and reframes Africa’s trade choices as matters of justice across generations and ecosystems. In doing so, it equips FIDEP to set agendas, convene coalitions, and shape the global discourse on trade, rights, and sustainability.
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Energy, Minerals, and Intergenerational Equity under the Paris Agreement
This section examines Africa’s role in the global energy transition, focusing on lithium and critical minerals, green job creation, and intergenerational equity. By echoing the “just transition” language embedded in the UNFCCC and ILO frameworks, it interrogates whether Africa’s mineral trade pathways deliver climate justice or entrench extractivism, especially for youth and marginalized groups.
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Trade, Deforestation, and the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework
This part connects the cocoa economy to the future of Africa’s forests, analyzing the trade–deforestation nexus within the context of the Global Biodiversity Framework. It explores how sustainable cocoa production, agroforestry, and fair trade standards can be harmonized with AfCFTA rules to safeguard ecosystems, biodiversity corridors, and community livelihoods.
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The Land and Palm Rights Dossier
This section investigates the expansion of oil palm and associated land rights struggles through the lens of SDG 15 (Life on Land) and UN human rights frameworks. It highlights plantation-driven displacement, ecological loss, and the gendered impacts of land commodification, while showcasing rights-based models that align trade with sovereignty, justice, and ecological restoration.