The grey arrows represent the information outgoing from
Producer Organisations and World Shops, the white ones the incoming information.
As suggested by many Producer Organisations and also by a number of Importing
Organisation, the information flow between European and ELDC ATOs is unbalanced.
Lots of data, required by Importing and Labelling Organisations, mainly for
monitoring purposes, must periodically be provided by Producer Organisations,
while the other way round is not working properly (with few exceptions). Between
World Shops and Importing Organisations or National Associations, the information
flow is more balanced, although it can still be improved. Between National
Associations and Importing Organisations, the relations are fairly good with
common projects and activities, while the relations between Importing Organisations
and Labelling Organisations are still turbulent. It is also clear that between
Producer Organisation and consumers there is virtually no communication and
that the information is always filtered by other organisations.
As shown in previous figure, the present information flow
is inefficiently centralised by the Importing Organisations and, partially,
by the Labelling Organisations. The inefficiency does not lie in the centralisation
itself, rather in the fact that the internal structure is sometimes inadequate
or not open enough to allow an easy access. To solve this problem and allow
a smoother flow of information throughout Fair Trade, it is necessary to shift
to an open system where each ATO still plays an important role, without being
the ultimate owner of the information. Basically the idea is that every ATO
provides the open system with the information needed by the others. As soon
as the information is recorded in the system, it is immediately available
to all the users connected, with the only exception of confidential information.