Livelihood Development

Continuous livelihood development of members.

Livelihood development programs were designed to help improve the quality of life for marginalized people by providing them with access to health care, livelihood opportunity and protection; thereby giving they hope to constructively contribute to their communities. Extension staff and MOPA management launch many of projects including trainings and other awareness services for shift up attitudes/ knowledge and experiences of members regarding this developments.

A component of trade is the social premium that buyers of fair trade goods pay to the producers or producer-groups of such goods. An important factor of the fair trade social premium is that the producers or producer-groups decide where and how it is spent. These premiums usually go towards socioeconomic development, wherever the producers or producer-groups see fit. Within producer-groups, the decisions about how the social premium will be spent are handled democratically, with transparency and participation.

Producers and producer-groups spend this social premium to support socioeconomic development in a variety of ways. One common way to spend the social premium of fair trade is to privately invest in public goods that infrastructure and the government are lacking in. These include environmental initiatives, public schools, and water projects. At some point, all producer-groups re-invest their social premium back into their farms and businesses. They buy capital, like trucks and machinery, and education for their members, like organic farming education. some percent of producer-groups spend the social premium in its entirety on themselves, but the rest invest in public goods, like paying for teachers’ salaries, providing a community health care clinic, and improving infrastructure, such as bringing in electricity and bettering roads.

Marginalized Organic Producers’ Association conduct need assessments individually and promoting most suitable investments from the premium for better outcome. Different types of projects can be risen up at once hence having more than 1500 No’s of members at current status of the association willing to invest in different ways. Each of project helps somehow to make livelihood development of them.