Sunday 3rd June

Today has been a busy day of compiling reports on how our campaigning went yesterday to send back to SCIAF HQ. The Alternative Summit is also beginning all over Rostock, aimed to run in parallel with the G8 summit itself, and today we’ve been to workshops, conferences and debates. In the early afternoon, I heard some delegates from Peru and India talk about the effect that unfair trading is having on their livelihoods. The EU is currently negotiating some trade deals with seventy-five former colonies, yet these deals are really damaging in their current form. The conditions of these trading deals mean that small scale farmers and producers will have to open up their markets to heavily subsidised EU farmers who can offer their products for much lower prices.

Later in the evening, I attended a screening of the documentary Black Gold, which focuses on the coffee industry in Ethiopia. The facts are truly shocking, and really spurred me on to do something. Despite the costs that high street coffee chains charge per cup of coffee, the Ethiopian producers aren’t receiving enough per kilo to send their children to school or have access to clean, safe water. With the recent collapse of World Trade Organisation talks, Ethiopian producers’ hands are tied. Everything I’ve learned today really spurs me on to get even more support for SCIAF’s trade justice campaigns - it’s vital to ensuring that small scale producers can work their own way out of poverty.

We also spoke to our partners in the Global Call to Action Against Poverty coalition, and had some really interesting discussions about the amount of aid that G8 countries are giving. Globally, the amount spent on bottled water is three times the amount we spend on aid. SCIAF’s Make Aid Work campaigning has seen over 10,000 postcards arrive at Downing Street, holding our Prime Minister to account for the amounts of aid the UK has pledged. We’re all anxiously awaiting outcomes from the summit when it starts on Wednesday, to hear whether Mr Blair will urge his G8 counterparts to go further on aid. Our policy analyst, Abi Dymond, will be right at the heart of developments from the summit all next week. I’ll be home tomorrow, so look out for more updates on the website.

Lexi Barnett
Sunday 3rd June