Global poverty is a complex problem. While Fair Trade is one way to help small-scale farmers and artisans have a more secure income and a voice in their community, there are many other pieces to the puzzle that forms a truly sustainable livelihood. Without all those pieces in place, substantial successes can quickly be jeopardized by shocks, like a death in the family, a drought, a conflict in the community, etc.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has developed a holistic approach for Catholics to respond to global poverty entitled Catholics Confront Global Poverty. This new initiative calls for action in the areas of US international assistance, international peacekeeping and peacebuilding, debt relief, global trade and agricultural policies, natural resources, migration, and global climate change.

The goal of Catholics Confront Global Poverty is to educate and mobilize one million Catholics in the United States to “defend the life and dignity of people living in poverty throughout the world, and urge our nation to act in response to the many faces of poverty.”

The USCCB focuses on global trade as a part of its teaching and advocacy on economic justice, and in particular on how trade policy impacts developing countries that are seeking to reduce poverty and increase their peoples’ income by selling their goods in the global marketplace. The USCCB has offered a moral framework, closely aligned with the principles of Fair Trade, against which trade agreements and trade policies should be judged.

Through the CCGP initiative you can put your Fair Trade practices toward advocating for a more just global trade system and addressing the multiple factors causing poverty around the world. Please visit the CCPG website to join one million Catholics confronting global poverty!