URFIG-supported Document about WTO-EU
(May 28, 2001)
From the 24 – 28 of May, 2001, we, the under mentioned civil society organisations from West, Eastern, Southern, Northern Africa, and the Middle East met in Accra, Ghana.Our objective was to discuss the pressing challenges facing the people in African and other developing countries in the global economic system, and to develop a framework of activities for civil society organisations to confront these challenges.
We paid particular attention to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Cotonou Agreement, and the US –Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and the dangers they pose to the democratic rights and development of African economies and the equitable needs of their peoples. In relation to these, we have deliberated upon the following issues and reached the following conclusions.
The WTO
Agreements, processes and the institution of the World Trade Organisation are imbalanced against African and other developing countries. In essence, the agreements (in particular on agriculture, TRIMS, TRIPS, services) serve principally to prise open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national economies, workers, farmers, women and other groups in the developing world, and the environment. The WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, untransparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the people of Africa and the world's people.
Those governments that dominate the WTO, and that, together with the transnational corporations have benefited from the WTO system, have refused to recognise and address these problems. Instead, they have been pushing for further liberalisation through the introduction of new issues for adoption in the WTO.
Thousands of civil society groups from Africa and all over the world have continued to campaign against the inequities of the WTO system, and the system of global economic regulation represented by it.
Before and during the failed Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Seattle, African civil society groups joined thousands of civil society groups the world over to oppose the use of the Ministerial Conference to launch a new round of comprehensive liberalisation, demanding instead, a turnaround of the global system. Since Seattle, civil society organisations the world over have continued to campaign to take out of the WTO, issues that do not belong to its sphere, as well as to revise existing agreements, in order to protect livelihoods and the right to development of peoples.
Civil society groups have not been alone in making these demands. African and other developing countries governments also sought redress for the imbalances and inequities of the existing WTO agreements, which have damaged their economies and threatened the livelihoods of their peoples. At the same time, they opposed the introduction of new issues in the WTO, and demanded an end to the undemocratic processes of the WTO that marginalized them. Since Seattle, these governments have continued to exert strenuous efforts to keep their demands alive in the WTO.
However, the concerns of civil society and the demands by developing country governments have been ignored by the major powers in the WTO. Negotiations on the concrete proposals put forward by developing countries for the review of the agreements in such areas as Agriculture, TRIPS,TRIMs and services have been frustrated by the developed countries. At the same time, the latter have used negotiations in areas such as services to exert pressure for further liberalisation, ignoring the concerns of civil society for the protection of social services and needs.
Instead, the US, EU, Canada, and Japan have continued to put pressure on developing countries for the launch of a new round to begin negotiating new agreements, in such areas as investment, competition policy and government procurement. In furtherance of this, and as part of their determination to launch a new round at the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, these countries have resorted to the same undemocratic and non-transparent processes, as well as, the blatant bullying and divisive tactics that were in evidence in Seattle.
At the recently concluded United Nations Conference on LDCs, governments of the developed countries as well the WTO secretariat attempted unsuccessfully to use the desperate needs of LDCs (34 of the 48 of which are in Africa) to force them to agree to a new round.
Earlier, in November 2000, the US and the EU colluded with the WTO secretariat to use the Ministerial Workshop in Libreville, Gabon as an attempt to force African ministers to support the launching of a new round. This was in utter disregard of the Africa's own decisions, taken by their collective decision-making structures, opposing the new round and calling for the review of existing WTO agreements.
Cotonou - AGOA
Regional and bilateral agreements with African countries have also been utilised by developed countries to introduce the issues that they have difficulty introducing in the WTO.Through the domestic law enacted by the US, the so-called African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), African countries are pressured to adopt WTO-like, and even WTO-plus, provisions relating to intellectual property rights protection, investment and financial liberalisation. These are all in exchange for some illusory benefits. AGOA is being used to trap African governments into giving up their legitimate rights under the WTO, and to secure opportunities for US businesses to the detriment of African domestic economic development.
The Cotonou Agreement is similar. It sustaining existing aid relationships between Europe and ACP countries. However, the trade component of the agreement contains provisions requiring African governments' compliance with a range of measures contained in the WTO agreements. It calls for full compliance with the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO. It requires African governments to negotiate for adoption of provisions on competition and investor protection that the European Union is seeking in the WTO, where they are being opposed by African governments. In addition, it provides for the negotiation of reciprocal free trade agreements between the EU and African countries, separately or in regional groupings. This will prejudice agricultural production, and industrial development within national or regional development.
Both the Cotonou Agreement and AGOA will pressure African countries to continue implementation of structural adjustment policies, while dividing them and undermine Africa's efforts at regional integration.
Underlying Economic Problems
The pressing problems of economic development facing African countries have grown worse. The developed countries, and international financial institutions dominated by them, IMF and the World Bank have refused to seriously consider the means of resolving Africa's debt problem. Instead, the debt burden continues to be utilised as an instrument to force African governments to continue - through the so-called HIPC programme and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSPs) - with the structural adjustment policies that severely damage our economies, harm our people and aggravate the debt crisis.
Women are disproportionately affected by these problems. The current trade regime excarbates their subordination, in particular the exploitation of women's labour which underpins the free market system, and enables the perpetuation of gender, class and national inequities in the global system.
Our demands and commitments
In the light of all this, we will strengthen our efforts in the on-going campaigns, actions and alliances in Africa and the world, to change the unfair and oppressive multilateral trade system embodied by the WTO and other trade agreements, to reverse the destructive effects of the current global economic order, as part of the processes and efforts for an equitable, balanced and sustainable economic development based on the needs of African people and their priorities. To these ends we make the following:
In relation to the WTO
We are opposed to the launch at the forthcoming WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar of a new round of comprehensive negotiations.
For a gender-sensitive, sustainable, equitable and democratically accountable system of international economic relations, we endorse and reiterate the demands in the global civil society platform statement, WTO: Shrink or Sink, in particular:
-there must be no further expansion of WTO, by bringing in new issues, such as investment, competition, government procurement, biotechnology, and accelerated tariff liberalisation;
-social rights and services should be protected; therefore health, education, energy and other rights and services must not be subject to liberalisation under the General Agreement on Services (GATS);
-patenting of life forms must be prohibited, and furthermore, the TRIPS Agreement, a protectionist instrument which promotes corporate monopoly, restricts developing countries' access to technology, and denies the poor access to essential medicines, should be removed from the WTO;
-measures taken to promote and protect food security, food sovereignty and small-scale agriculture and enterprise must be exempt from WTO trade disciplines;
-the effective operationalisation and expansion of special and differential rights for third world countries, that recognise fully the weak position of developing countries in the international trading system and that provides them space to participate in the global economy according their own needs; and
-the decision-making processes and the dispute settlement system of the WTO must be reformed to democratic, transparent and equitable.
In relation to Cotonou
We oppose the free trade pressures within the Cotonou Agreement; and
We call for effective and coordinated negotiating strategies, in order to develop alternative trade arrangements that support nationally and regionally defined priorities for development.
In relation to AGOA
The aims and interests propelling AGOA and the forthcoming Bush summit must be resisted by African governments and their peoples;
African governments must desist from taking measures intended to satisfy the eligibility requirements under the Act;
Our activities
In order to realise the above demands, we will undertake the following activities :
jointly, or individually, and with other groups and allies;
in our countries, in our sub-regions, continentally and globally;
with our diverse range of constituencies; and
in relation to governments, economic and trade policy decision-making bodies, at the national, sub-regional, continental, and global levels.
We understand that conditions differ from country to country, from region to region; and among different constituencies. Therefore these activities represent options that we can pursue according to our respective circumstances. And we will offer support to each other, and share resources as appropriate, in solidarity with initiatives led by groups in their own contexts.
As part of the global social movements for alternatives, we are committed to pursuit of just, equitable and sustainable alternatives to the current global system.
Signatories :
Abantu for Development, Ghana
Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC), South Africa
Arab NGO Network for Development, Lebanon
Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS), Egypt
Counseil des ONG d’Appui au Développement (CONGAD), Sénégal
ECONEWS Africa, Kenya
ENDA-TM, Sénégal
Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth-Nigeria
Espace Associatif, Morocco
Friends of the Earth, Ghana
Gender and Trade (GENTA), Benin
Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre, Ghana
General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU), Ghana
Inter Press Service (IPS), Burkina Faso
Inter Press Serive (IPS), Kenya
Inter Press Service (IPS) Zimbabwe
Journalists for Democratic Rights, Nigeria
Friends of the Earth, Togo
MOSOP, Nigeria Environmental and Human Rights Group
Nigeria Labour Congress
Organisation of African Trade Unions Unity, Ghana
Oxfam GB West African Regional Program, Senegal
Railways Artisans Union- Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
Third World Network-Africa, Ghana
Worldview International
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Third World
Network-Africa
9 Ollenu Street, East Legon
P O Box AN19452
Accra-North
Ghana
tel: 233 21 511189/503669/500419
fax: 233 21 511188
E-mail : twnafrica@ghana.com