Angella Johnson
The Commonwealth has endorsed its first economic charter committing the 54-nation body to free market principles, though its poorer members thwarted a call by richer countries for a full round of new world trade negotiations.
President Nelson Mandela warned fellow heads of government at the four-day Edinburgh summit that stable democracies could not be sustained in countries where poverty was rife. He said that although South Africa was often referred to as a developed country, this only applied to the minority 13% white sector of the population.
“That’s a point that we have been making. If you look at the whites it’s developed, but if you look at the majority of South Africa it’s a developing country,” he said.
Edinburgh established four key economic principles: the world economy should be geared towards promoting universal growth and prosperity; there must be effective participation by all countries in economic decision-making; removing the obstacles that prevent developing countries playing a full part in shaping the global economy; and international regimes affecting economic relations among nations should provide benefits for all.
The document, entitled Promoting Shared Prosperity, was hailed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair as “an important and exciting development” that provides the framework for the Commonwealth to play a dynamic role in promoting trade and investment.
But a group of poorer nations, led by India, New Zealand and Singapore, complained that they were vulnerable to sweeping new trade measures, which would leave them marginalised if their fragile economies were not protected. They called for special help in the transition to the new trading climate, and said the bigger nations should fight for them in any new agreements.
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the secretary general, gave notice of the smaller states’ worries in his opening address when he said that the benefits of globalisation had been distributed unequally. “For many developing countries, globalisation has meant further marginalisation. An international underclass has emerged to complement the underclass within nations,” he said.
President Mandela, in a private briefing with South African journalists, said that although the economic declaration was being hailed as a positive development, it was “not binding in its present form” and needed further discussion before it could be supported by South Africa. Caribbean leaders, often dependent on single-export economies, used the forum to express their concern about the recent ruling by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that declared the European Union’s banana import regime illegal. Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson told leaders that the WTO decision was an example of where the “abrupt unilateral liberalisation of trade has changed domestic production, before the factors of production hitherto employed have been adapted for alternative use”.
He said African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries should use Britain’s presidency of the European Union (EU), beginning in January – to start negotiations for a “revitalised” Lom convention, an economic pact between the EU and the 71 ACP countries. British officials said they were sympathetic to the plight of these countries but conceded that there is little the Commonwealth can formally do to force the WTO to reconsider its position.