Trade

Catherine Negus, used to be Campaigns Assistant

Today marks the launch of Fairtrade Fortnight 2011, a celebration of the most widely-recognised ethical label. Fairtrade sales broke the £1 billion mark last year, showing that even during a recession, many consumers still consider the impact of their buying decisions.

However, there’s a very long way to go before all trade is fair, and it’s unlikely that schemes like Fairtrade can bring this about by themselves. Part of their strength is that by using market solutions and focusing on changing public attitudes, they do not alienate anyone. But this approach is also a weakness. The need for Fairtrade schemes is a clear sign that the current global economic system only makes the rich richer.

Commercial giants

The monopolies of huge companies like Cargill, ConAgra and Unilever and of the supermarkets keep selling prices low at the expense of producers. This keeps farmers in the global south working for survival, with little chance of building up their own economies. Often small farmers, who can be very efficient at producing food and protecting the environment, cannot survive.

Fairtrade supports the income of its producers in the global south, and, says Deborah Doane, WDM’...

The progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals is being discussed at a summit in New York. The goals were set in 2000 with a target of meeting them by 2015. Ten years later, it's clear that progress in many areas is slow, espeicially for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where over half the population continues to live in abject poverty.

Deborah Doane, director of UK based, anti-poverty campaigners, the World Development Movement explains why:
“With only five years to reach the Millennium Development Goals, leaders of rich countries need to get beyond inspirational speeches, and pledging more aid money that never arrives. Heads of State are delivering rhetoric but little else.
 

"They need to address the root causes of poverty that simply aren’t being mentioned: including an unfair trading system, unjust debt burdens and the biggest elephant in the room: climate change. If governments continue to dodge these thorny issues, then ultimately, MDG project will be doomed to failure.”
 

The World Development Movement believes that the lack of progress can be attributed to three central failures by rich countries which are neglecting people in sub-Saharan Africa in particular, but are also failing to address inequality between...

Here in the UK, the review of legislation on dangerous dogs has caught media attention – how some dogs are being bred as weapons to intimate others and at times have attacked vulnerable people like children. It’s a strange analogy, and one which I probably would not have made myself, but this morning European campaigners wanted to make a point that EU trade policy is like a dangerous dog - it’s predatory, aggressive and dangerous to the poorest people in the world.
 

The S2B group of campaigners staged a media stunt outside a trade conference on ‘EU trade policy towards developing countries’ hosted by the European trade commission. A five-metre high inflated savage dog, representing EU trade policy, was let off its lead by a giant business official, attacking victims representing small farmers, small businesses, women and indigenous people from the developing world.

The S2B network, which WDM is a member of, criticised the conference as a poor attempt to wrap a dangerous corporate trade agenda in development rhetoric. Current trade policies benefit European multinationals helping them to reap more profits but threaten the livelihoods of small farmers and...

Earlier this week, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) announced a new programme to support teaching on trade policy and ‘WTO-related matters’ in universities in developing countries. This programme would fund teaching, research and outreach on trade issues à la WTO.

The current Doha round is in its painful ninth year and the failure to come to a conclusion has been testament to the growing resistance of civil society and developing country governments to the bullying tactics at the WTO where rich countries have sought to fiercely promote corporate interests.

The WTO has made gains in opening up markets in developing countries but they want more. They are upping their game: If you can’t always get your way with negotiators from developing countries, why not groom some instant advocates in key countries, through a programme to indoctrinate, sorry I mean influence, a generation of potential policymakers and trade experts in the ways of the WTO?

This strategy bears uncanny resemblance to the 1957 US funded programme for Chilean students to study Economics at the University of Chicago, as cited by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine, in the hope of challenging the socialist regime back home. Chicago was, of course, home to Milton Friedman and these students were...

After Tuesday’s earthquake, which has left up to 50,000 people dead, WDM has joined the Jubilee Debt Campaign in calling for an urgent cancellation of all of Haiti's remaining debt.

"The poverty that already exists in Haiti will be even more devastating as a result of this emergency and it clearly requires high levels of aid to combat it. This should also come with wholesale debt cancellation and the need to need to ensure that aid is given in the form of genuine grants as opposed to traditional IMF-backed loans, which would undoubtedly worsen an already dire situation", said Julian Oram, Head of Policy at WDM.

We welcome the cancellation of two thirds ($1.2 billion) of Haiti’s debt in 2009, but condemn the fact that the country still has $641 million in debt on its books and in 2010 is projected to pay around $10million to International Financial Institutions.

We also think that the International Monetary Fund’s proposed offer of $100 million in new lending to Haiti is completely inappropriate. Even though lent at very concessional rates of interest, the proposal contradicts the IMF’s own policy recommendations that Haiti should not borrow more money because, even after debt cancellation, its potential for debt distress remains high.
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I mentioned roosting chickens in an earlier blog, I’m not obsessed with them honestly but chickens have come up again during my time in Geneva. Ghana used to have a buoyant poultry industry but subsidised poultry from the EU has decimated the Ghanaian poultry industry.

I heard Kenneth Quartey who represents Ghanian poulty farmers say that: “If the Doha Round concludes we see little space for agriculture in Ghana and in Africa, where 60 per cent of the population relies on agriculture for its income. We just simply do not know what to do next.” This sentiment is echoed around the world by farmers and fishers, labour groups and environmentalists who all see a Doha conclusion as a complete and utter disaster.

The WTO ministerial closed today with the reaffirmation that development is still central to the Doha round and a 2010 deadline is still on the cards. It beggars belief, that the WTO has the cheek to use the word ‘development’ when its rules and policies are decimating entire sectors (e.g. chickens in Ghana and cotton in West Africa) causing massive job losses in its wake and derailing much needed poverty alleviation in developing countries.

Development is also about enabling countries to...

The WTO ministerial conference officially opened this afternoon at 3pm (2pm UK time) and as delegates from around the world were entering into the open plenary session, they were welcomed by singing trade campaigners from the Our World is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network - a network of organisations, activists and social movements worldwide fighting the current model of corporate globalisation embodied in the global trading system. The World Development Movement is a member of OWINFS and WDM trade campaigner Heidi Chow was also part of the group of singing activists. Their song was based on the tune of jingle bells and started with "no new round, turn around, the world has had enough..."

OWINFS were keen to ensure that the delegates were aware of the global protest against the WTO and the Doha round.

You can receive live updates on twitter or though Heidi's blog and read more about the WTO

Today I have been attending briefings in preparation for the ministerial conference which starts at 3pm tomorrow afternoon. I walked to the WTO building to pick up my badge which will allow me access to the ministerial as well as the NGO centre.

During a NGO briefing, we were told that we could access the open spaces at the ministerial conference (book shop, coffee bar, loos) but that the main sessions would be closed and only 42 people from NGOs (there are around 500 NGO representatives in total here) could attend the opening plenary. Most of the NGOs in the room were not happy with the lack of access but shrugged their shoulders and rolled their eyes acknowledging this is how the WTO works – unaccountable and untransparent. A Norwegian campaigner commented that when he attended the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation summit, NGOs were allowed access to the meetings and were even allowed to take the floor in some debates. The director of public affairs could only confess that the WTO were not that ‘advanced’ yet.

So my badge can get me coffee (which I don’t drink) and books (on free trade)…

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I arrived in Geneva at 5pm this evening (having left my home in London at 6am) and I had to quickly drop my luggage off at the hotel, work out the tram system and then get myself to a meeting with other trade campaigners from around the world. I arrived at the meeting, just as the pizza did, so not bad timing I thought.

I’m here for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference which is taking place on 30 November – 2 December. Ten years on from the Seattle protests that shut down the talks in 1999, the world finds itself in a perilous state faced with global emergencies in the economy, food, climate and employment. The chickens have come home to roost. Let me explain why…The economic crisis finds its roots in the deregulation of financial markets that enabled banks and lenders to engage in reckless lending and ultimately brought the global economy to its knees. The US and EU were key drivers behind this move to deregulate, they exported their deregulation agenda and got it enshrined in the WTO rules but now it is biting them back.

Last year, world leaders agreed on the need for more regulation to prevent a reoccurrence of the financial crisis, yet there are WTO rules that actually constrain governments from regulating their financial sectors. There is...

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