The violent troubles in 2006 drove many staff of Japanese nongovern- mental organizations out of East Timor. The NGOs I visited had modest offices and accommodations, and the staff lived frugally -- unlike the "lords of poverty" I have encountered elsewhere in the international development community.
Peace Winds and the Japan-based Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) maintain small operations based in Dili, East Timor's capital, and each has established a coffee cooperative and assists in the distribution of this Fair Trade, organic coffee in Japan.
Why coffee? It is the nation's leading non-oil export, and by working with farmers it is a way of directly improving living standards in the countryside where most people live. PARC markets some 30 tons of Timorese coffee (less than 5 percent of the total harvest) through Seikyo, a large Japanese cooperative. The major player is Starbucks, which works with a cooperative set up during the Indonesian era.
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