AFA co-organized a panel session entitled “Towards Fair Trade in an Integrating ASEAN: Perspectives of Workers, Farmers and Informal Sector” held at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, Mandaluyong City, Philippines last October 25, 2007. The pane l session was one of the concurrent panel sessions conducted during the 6th ASEAN Peoples’ Assembly (APA) with the theme “ASEAN at 40: Realizing the Peoples’ Expectations”.
Mr. Muhammad Nuruddin, Executive Committee Member of AFA, and Secretary General of Aliansi Petani Indonesia (API), presented a paper entitled “Towards a Fair Trade in an Integrating ASEAN: Perspectives of Small Men and Women Farmers in AFA”. It called on governments, NGOs, business and farmers’ groups to work together in a participatory manner to develop a strategic policy for agriculture that integrates trade and development.
The other organizers of the panel were regional organizations such as, ASEAN Service Employees Trade Union Council (ASETUC), Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia (AsiaDHRRA), Fair Trade Alliance (FTA), Homebased Workers’ Networks in Southeast Asia (Homenet Southeast Asia), and Union Network International -Asia Pacific Region (UNI-APRO).
The other panel speakers were: Mr. Wigberto Tanada, FTA (on fair trade), Ms. Alice Chang, UNI-APRO (on workers), and Ms. Rosalinda Ofreneo, Homenet Southeast Asia (on informal sector). The panel was also attended by the AFA Secretary General and other secretariat staff. (See Annex 3 for the synthesis report of the panel session).
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