Earlier this year the IFAT Board agreed to take full responsibility for the direction and coordination of future World Fair Trade Day development and promotion. We have asked HOST Universal, an organization with considerable Fair Trade experience and understanding to assist us with this for the first year.

We are grateful to NEWS in Europe and to People Tree of Japan and the UK for the rich experience, vision and legacy of the past 10 years. Many others have also contributed to the growing interest and success of this program. We will build on this experience and ensure that work in all parts of the world will reenforce the work done by others. We all learned from the success of the Global Journey the impact of a single focus.

We are presenting you with a framework, a WFTDay website, in which we want each of you to create within your own contexts, events, activities, etc. We intend to promote a single strong message during the days around WFTDay 2009.  The theme of environment continues for a second year.

Today August 8, 2008 we launch this website and the beginning preparations for May 2009. Please spend time within the website; review it carefully as you decide how to participate and encourage others to participate. This is the beginning. Additional work is being done to drive the world to this site. If you have questions, please be in contact with Allison our communications officer: communications@ifat.org.

I introduce the new website to you with the following observations:

Today is a big day. It's a big day for consumers, producers, buyers and sellers, all of whom have different needs, motivations and solutions.

It's a big day for interdependence. Our new model sits well with worldwide demand for a new paradigm - a new vision, a more sustainable more prosperous future. We can contribute to each other, and learn from each other. So we need each other.

It's a big day for risk taking. We need NEW because OLD doesn't work. We need to demonstrate our difference and people need to know we are different. If people can see, touch and feel our difference, they'll create the change we all want to see.

It's a big day for transparency. The whole world needs to know who we are, what we are about, why it is important, why we do it. And then demand that same transparency from all others.

It's a big day for Fair Trade. Our dreams, our vision, our strategy must translate swiftly into quantity and quality orders. We need focus, and integrity. If how I trade makes a positive impact, then how I trade should run through all my trading practices.

It's a big day for participation. Everyone: Our family. Our community. Our business. Our organization. Everyone can, in many ways and at various levels, take action. Positively, creatively, inclusively and single-mindedly meet the need for change.

It's a big day for World Fair Trade Day. World Fair Trade Day 2009 is our big day. It will, like a strong magnifying glass, with the sun behind it, focus the world's attention on the significance of trading fairly with millions of producers, who also happen to be the custodians of our ecology.

It's a big day for the planet. Poverty and climate change are inextricably linked, and Fair Trade has the potential to impact both. Conventional wisdom has got us where we are today. It's time to change. If we don't act, and act now, we cannot expect anyone else to act for us, or to create a world fit for our families to live in.

Register on the site (if you haven’t already) network through it, talk to your people, create an event and promote it like there is no tomorrow - which may not be so very far from the truth. www.WorldFairTradeDay09.org

Paul Myers,
President, World Fair Trade Organization.