Initiated by the third largest coffee buyer in the world, Sarah Lee, the DE Foundation funds projects that stimulate a healthy and stable mainstream coffee market. Typical for the coffee market is that most producers are small farmers. They are vulnerable in many aspects: not only in the quality of their beans and in the market access of their crops, but also in their labour - if they fall ill, there is nobody to replace them. And this is where development organisations like Plan Nederland come in. Stephanie Miltenburg: "We always look for partners who know these communities and who know the appearances that can disrupt a steady coffee production, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We need partners like development organisations to raise food security in the region, to provide for agricultural training, to implement measures like tree planting or crop diversification and to educate the children, who will hopefully continue the farms of their parents."
Plan invited the private sector to come up with ideas on how to contribute to four of its projects: improving pre- and postnatal care in the Peruvian town Cuzco, boosting the local economy in Eastern Java with micro credits and vocational training for youth, improving access to education for girls in the largest and poorest state of India, Rajasthan, and developing ICT-appliances for children in Togo, a country where half of the population is under 18 years.
Plan Nederland, like many other Dutch development organisations eager to involve the private sector, has developed a tool to screen whether companies adhere to norms for corporate social responsibility, especially with regard to the impact on children. Plan uses this Child Centred Company Scan in dialogues with companies to look for possibilities to improve the life of children in a sustainable way.
P+ Webtip: Plan Nederland