This study examines the impact of 10 years of fair trade in coffee in Costa Rica and reveals
the importance of organisational development support for the stakeholders of the nine Costa Rican coffee co-operatives.

The study is based on fieldwork conducted in 1999 in response to a rising interest in assessing the impacts of fair frade on its target groups. Fieldwork was conducted with Coocafé; the Fair Trade coffee consortium made up of nine primary-level coffee cooperatives in Costa Rica.

The study followed a series of assessments commissioned in 1999 by the Fair Trade Labelling Organisations (FLO) on the impact of fairly traded coffee in five countries: Tanzania, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Nicaragua. The present work is similar in focus to these studies, but was conducted independently from them.