This project emanates from a CIDA Partnerships for Tomorrow Program II grant which funded a visit by myself and Annie McKitrick to Kyrgyzstan in December, 2008. The purpose of the trip was to introduce Social Economy concepts, including the notion of ‘fair trade’ to various sectors working to enhance community economic development in the country. Independence for Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union brought severe poverty and economic collapse to rural areas as collective farms fell apart. Gulnara Baimambetova’s NGO, Women’s Entrepreneurial Support Association (WESA) has been instrumental in helping rural women understand their rights to claim and own land by obtaining the help needed to clarify the land privatization law and encouraging its proper administration. Gulnara is a confident and competent local leader who understands the Kyrgyz situation and has trained her staff to intervene successfully in the difficulties rural people face at this stage of the transitional economy. WESA has taken part in a UNIFEM-led pilot project to teach rural people the competencies needed for conducting rural enterprise. Government and private sector assistance is neither readily accessible nor available to rural women struggling to secure viable spaces in the transition economy of Kyrgyzstan. This report begins by highlighting Gulnara’s challenges and accomplishments working with rural women’s groups in Kyrgyzstan. It then explores responses to the Social Economy and ‘fair trade’ ideas we introduced to various groups during my visit. Finally, we will provide an analysis of problems and possibilities for integrating ‘trade with a cause’ into the marketing work of women’s craft cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan. At the heart of Gulnara’s work at WESA is the goal of providing strategic economic support for women struggling to adjust in the post-Soviet transition economy. Most of the craft, agricultural and food products of Kyrgyzstan are produced by women, particularly by women who have joined together to overcome common economic difficulties. Much of our work focused on learning about and assisting women with establishing alternative ways of working with market economies. A particularly interesting aspect of this project is that in my study and experience of ‘fair trade’ the focus has been on improving conditions of production beginning with a ‘fair price’ and then moving on to address human rights or gender issues (gender is still only marginally addressed in current international Fair Trade standards). In the case of Kyrgyzstan, much of the human rights and gender work has already been initiated making for an interesting study of the way fair trade standards can be introduced where the importance of gender has already been established. Bibliography

Acker, Joan. 2004. “Gender, capitalism and globalization.” Critical Sociology 31(1):17- 41. Aslanbeigui, N., Steven Pressman, and Gale Summerfield. 2003. “Toward gender equity: Policies and strategies.” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 16(3): 327-330. Bank, World. 2006. Gender Equality as Smart Economics: A World Bank Group Gender Action Plan, World Bank: 25. Blakeley, G. and V. Bryson (Eds.) 2007. The Impact of Feminism on Political Concepts and Debates. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dankevy, S. S. 2002. Investigating Gender and Development Discourse: An Examination of the International Development Research Centre’s Practices. Department of Sociology. Victoria, BC, University of Victoria. Master of Arts: 140. Economic and Social Council, (UN) Commission on the Status of Women. 2004. Measures taken and progress achieved in the follow-up to and implementation of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, especially in mainstreaming gender perspectives in entities of the United Nations system, United Nations: 21. Fridell, Gavin. 2007. Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gapova, Elena. 2004. “Conceptualizing gender, nation and class in post-soviet Belarus.” in Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition: Nation Building, Economic Survival and Civic Activism, edited by K. Kuehnast and C. Nechemias. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Giffen, J., L. Earle, with C. Buxton. 2005. The Development of Civil society in Central Asia. Oxford, INTRAC. Goetz, A. M., Ed. 1997. Getting Institutions Right for Women in Development. London, Zed Books. Hemment, Julie. 2004. “The riddle of the third sector: Civil society, international aid, and NGOs in Russia.” Anthropological Quarterly 77(2): 215-241. Ilcan, Suzan and Anita Lacey. 2006. “Governing through empowerment: Oxfam’s global reform and trade campaigns.” Globalizations 3(2): 207-225. Jackson, C. 2002. “Disciplining gender?” World Development 30(3): 497-509. Jaffee, Daniel. 2007. Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kardam, N. (1997). “Making development organizations accountable: The organizational, political and cognitive contexts.” Pp. 44-60 in Getting Institutions Right for Women in Development. London, Zed Books. Kuehnast, Kathleen and Carol Nechemias, editors (Ed.). 2004. Post-Soviet women encountering transition: Nation building, economic survival and civic activism. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rao, A. 2006. “Making institutions work for women.” Development 49(1): 63-67. Rao, A. and D. Kelleher. 2005. “Is there life after gender mainstreaming?” Gender and Development 13(2): 57-69. Rai, Shirin. 2002. Gender and the Political Economy of Development: From Nationalism to Globalization. London: Polity Press. Raynolds, Laura T., Douglas L. Murray and John Wilkinson. 2007. Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization. London; New York: Routledge. Saul, John S. 2006. Development after Globalization : Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age. London ; New York: Zed ; New York: Distributed in the USA by Palgrave. Stephen, Lynn. 2005. Zapotec Women : Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Globalized Oaxaca. 2nd ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.