Hong Kong | Thursday
AID group Oxfam International on Thursday launched a three year campaign to change global trade rules that it said are making rich nations richer and keeping millions of people locked in poverty.
”Oxfam is part of the growing movement that wants to see trade and globalisation working for people in poor countries, not against them,” the group said in a statement.
Oxfam’s campaign is aimed at, among other things, giving poor nations full access to rich countries’ markets and ending IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation rules that ”prise open poor country markets and destroy livelihoods.”
The ”Make Trade Fair” campaign, Oxfam’s most ambitious trade effort to date, will target politicians and officials who can change trade rules, companies and consumers who can buy products of fair trade and invest ethically.
”We are not against globalisation in itself, but we are very critical of the way it works and its economic impact,” Oxfam said.
Oxfam wants to influence the WTO’s so-called Doha round of trade negotiations, expected to conclude by around 2005. It is launching the campaign in 19 cities globally from Auckland to Dhaka, Johannesburg, Madrid and Washington, D.C.
In addition to market access and changing IMF/WTO/World Bank rules, Oxfam wants:
– A ban on rich countries subsidising their agricultural exports, which would cut overproduction.
– Action to stabilise prices for primary commodities at higher levels and to pay more to small farmers.
– Fairer patent rules that ensure poor countries can afford new technologies and basic medicines and seeds.
– Better employment, health and education standards, especially for women.
– National and regional policies in developing countries that help poor people access markets and benefit from trade.
EXPORTS SEEN REDUCING POVERTY
In a 271-page report laying out its arguments, it said if Africa, East Asia South Asia and Latin America were to increase their share of world exports by one percent, the resulting gains in income would lift 128-million people out of poverty.
In Africa alone, this would generate $70 billion a year, five times the amount which the continent currently receives in aid, it said.
Oxfam cites the case of East Asia as a region where effective economic and trade policies have helped to reduce poverty, specifically the development of exports while allowing protections from imports to develop its domestic economies.
Fewer than two in 10 people live in poverty in East Asia today versus six in 10 in the mid 1970s, it said.
Leaders of the Philippines and other poor Asian have recently cited chronic poverty as a ”breeding ground” for terrorism and called for economic development to keep such conditions from developing.
The campaign coincides with increasing calls by poor nations for trade policies that benefit them.
The latest round of WTO talks have been officially dubbed the Doha Development Agenda because it is expected to include issues important to third world nations, including technical assistance programmes and agricultural subsidies. – Reuters