Development fund of fair-trade supply chains

OLVEA produces and sells fair-trade raw materials: Shea butter, Sesame oil, Avocado oil. These products are fair-trade certified by Ecocert, according to the Fair for Life standard. It guarantees that the producers receive a fair price throughout the supply chain, improve their production tools, and have the means to carry out collective projects through a dedicated development fund.

OLVEA gives to this fund a percentage of the purchase price of raw materials bought from the farmers’ organizations. Projects financed by this fund must have a collective use and benefit the community; general objectives include the improvement of individual capacities, of knowledge, of know-how, of livelihoods, of environmental impact, of techniques or equipment, etc. The development fund is managed autonomously and independently; OLVEA can advise some actions but only the general assembly and farmers’ organizations choose the projects.

In 2018, the development funds related to the fair-trade supply chains of Shea butter, Sesame oil and Avocado oil were able to finance:

• Support to producers: supply of tricycles to make the transportation easier, and supply of improved cookstoves,
• Trainings in good agricultural practices,
• Equipment: building of warehouses and meeting rooms, purchase of crops, tanks, scales, mobile phones and computers,
• Social actions: children’s schooling, support of medical expenses, purchase of hospital beds, drillings, wells, sanitation,
• Capacity building: support to the management of farmers’ organization and of the development fund.