Leading up to the December 2005 World Trade Organization's (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, Pambazuka News will examine some of the issues regarding the WTO as it affects Africa. In the first of this series, we examine the relationship between African nations and the WTO.

A coalition of African civil society organizations has formed around the upcoming WTO meetings, under the umbrella of the African Trade Network. They comprise trade unions, agricultural organizations, faith-based groups, women’s collectives and non-governmental organizations, and argue that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are seriously undermining the rights of developing nations. The World Trade Organization is complicit in taking their goals further, and is leading to economic degradation and severe violations of the needs of people in African countries. The African Trade Network argues that the WTO has done little to meet the needs of developing countries, but have acted instead to further only the interests of their economies, which are often linked to corporate interests. In a collective statement, the Declaration of African Civil Society on the Road to the 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong, the groups that gathered in Accra, Ghana from the 16-19th of August this year, declared that the double standards of those in power are undermining the ability of African countries to develop.

There are a number of specific issues that these African countries feel is important for the WTO to pay special attention to. The decisions made surrounding these particular matters will be important for Africa and Africans.

Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA)

Negotiations in the area of non-agricultural market access will prove important at the upcoming WTO meeting, as wealthier countries will inevitably try to push through extreme reductions in tariffs, while at the same time attempting to impose restrictions on the levels to which developing countries can raise tariffs in the coming years. The NAMA talks centre around industrial goods, but also include natural resources, and the goal of these talks is to open up the economy and make access to these products easier (for wealthy countries, at least). The African Trade Network has taken as their position the demand that African countries not accept proposals on tariffs, but should instead negotiate to define and limit tariff instruments and related policies.

Agriculture

Because African’s are so dependent on agriculture for food security, development and income, this is an extremely integral area for negotiations. The African Trade Network argues that developing countries are being forced to open their markets to exports from wealthy countries, while they protect theirs. Furthermore, that wealthy countries provide subsidies to their farmers, while poor countries cannot, is indicative of just one example of inequality. The African Trade Network therefore demands that African countries take no further reductions in tariffs for agricultural products, and gain access to the right to protect domestic producers, including the right to designate special products. Wealthy countries must eliminate all subsidies which enable them to dump artificially cheap goods in countries that cannot afford to protest otherwise.

Services

Liberalization and deregulation have been long imposed on African and other developing countries, and have had the effect of transforming services, which are fundamental human rights, such as health, education and water, into private, for profit facilities. African countries must protest these human rights violations, and open up more services sectors, while at the same time committing these under the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services.

Economic Partnership Agreements

In an attempt to further WTO interests, the European Union has been bargaining with African countries around the Singapore Issues, in order to enable market access to European goods and services in Africa, which go beyond what is required of African countries according to the WTO. The so-called goal of the Economic Partnerships is to promote sustainable development and contribute to poverty eradication. These were negotiations, which began in 2002 and were aimed at redefining trade between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). The African Trade Network believes that to succumb to these demands would only prove detrimental to African nations, and that their governments must call for an end to the reciprocity requirements between Africa and the EU.

The very existence and processes of the World Trade Organization is contentious to many African civil society organizations. Non-transparent and undemocratic processes, as well as a general environment of exclusion from mini-ministerial meetings, has meant that wealthy countries are able to resolve controversial issues in their favour, without protest, prior to the actual ministerial. The African Trade Network therefore campaigns for a stronger, more unified African force, involving an alliance of governments, so that African concerns and needs are met in a fair and equitable manner.

* Researched and written by Karoline Kemp, Commonwealth of Learning Young Professionals Intern, Fahamu

For last weeks profile on the background to this years WTO Ministerial, see: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29838