Chains of Fortune

Much has been written about the negative impact of globalisation also opens up new economic opportunities if poor women producers and workers are enabled to take advantage of them. The need for assistance differs between independent producers on the one hand and wage workers in export industries on the other. In the former case, the need mainly is for increased access to global markets. In the latter case, the need mainly is for better organising so as to bargain for better wages and working conditions. This edited volume brings together six case studies. Three link local producers with global markets: a cocoa cooperative of 45,000 producers in Ghana who are co-owners of a chocolate company in the UK; family-based cooperatives in Samoa which produce organic virgin coconut oil for export; and small enterprises in Mozambique which are helping to regenerate the cashew procession and export industry. Three focus on improving the working conditions of the hundreds of thousands of wage workers in global value chains: those in the fruit exporting industry in South Africa; those in the garment export industry in Bangladesh; and those in the newly created call centres in India.
Each case study is written by a team of international and national researchers and aims to present decision makers with concrete examples which can spread the gains of globalisation to the working poor through shifting the balance of access, power and returns within global value chains. Marilyn Carr is a development economist and a Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Director, Global Markets Programme, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)