Zambia: Launch of cotton trade campaign in Zambia

Organisation Development and Community Management Trust (ODCMT), a grassroots non-governmental organisation has launched a local campaign on cotton trade in Zambia.

The campaign aims at petitioning the Zambian leadership and corporate companies to increase the price of cotton paid to small-scale producers.

It urges for the protection of the health of producers in the use of toxic pesticides and further calls for promotion of socially ethical and environmentally sound practices in investment ventures for sustainable development.

The ODCMT is building on its experience in its participation in a global trade campaign running up to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting held in Cancun, Mexico.

Its campaign in Zambia resulted in the a massive mobilisation of over 750 000 people, in six months, who joined 4 million others around the globe to petition the world’s most powerful leaders to make trade work for the poor at the last WTO summit.

The Cotton Trade Campaign in Zambia will involve the mobilisation of one million people leading up to the Global Week of Action on trade falling next year between 10-16 April 2005. This global initiative is being spearheaded by the Trade Justice Movement worldwide to eliminate poverty.

The ODCMT’s Campaign and Advocacy programme is being supported by Hivos’ Southern Africa regional office based in Harare. Hivos is an international non-governmental organisation whose headquarters is based in the Netherlands.