By Mario Osava
SAO PAULO, Jun 12 2004 (IPS)

”We don’t want an UNCTAD instrumental to World Trade Organisation agreements,” is the message that hundreds of non-governmental organisations and social movements will tell the government officials gathered for the eleventh United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

The declaration of the Civil Society Forum, approved here Saturday by NGO representatives from 40 countries and to be read in the official opening sessions of UNCTAD XI Monday, maintains that international trade, its institutions and agreements should be conditional on ”the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the conventions approved within the U.N. framework.

They also call for an end to the ”blackmail and military intervention” through which wealthy nations illegally occupy other territories in defence of their narrow interests and investments.

The text goes on to criticise the official statement of UNCTAD for omitting mention of the ”perverse relationship” between trade questions, ”the war and its billion-dollar costs” and poverty.

The Forum also demands the return to nations of their ”sovereign right to define policies appropriate to their realities,” without externally imposed constraints, including those imposed by transnational corporations through ”legal artifice”.

The civil society representatives, meeting here through Thursday to track and engage in dialogue with UNCTAD XI, criticise that conference’s official discussion document for accepting globalisation as a strong factor ”of growth and development”.

UNCTAD expresses its desire for an ”inclusive and equitable globalisation”, but notes there are countries and economic sectors that are ”losers” in that process, but fails to mention that transnationals and speculative financial capital are the winners, charge the NGOs and movements of workers, peasants, women and clerics.

Their declaration underscores the paralysis afflicting the WTO negotiation agenda and the changes in the ”international balance of power” that took place at the Cancún, Mexico conference of WTO ministers last year, when developing countries, united in several blocs, stood up against the measures that the global economic powers tried to impose.

UNCTAD, meanwhile, has taken up the discussion of issues that were rejected by the nations of the South in Cancún and which caused that meeting to fail.

Market access cannot be negotiated if there are stipulations in regards to other issues, like government procurement, investment, competition rules and expansion of intellectual property, says the Civil Society Forum.

Foreign debt, unilateral trade sanctions and other inequities should have solutions which ensure that poor countries can develop in ”sovereign, sustainable and equitable” ways, overcoming gender inequalities, protecting biodiversity and promoting family farming and food security, say the activists.

But despite the criticisms, several participants defended the strengthened role of UNCTAD as a defender of the link between trade and development.

Jorge Saavedra Durao, president of the Brazilian Association of NGOs (ABONG), one of the Forum organisers, denounced attempts by rich countries to undermine the UNCTAD mandate to that of a mere technical adviser to Africa and less developed nations.

Cancún ”changed the geopolitics of the WTO,” but the countries of the South must remain united, avoiding the divisions that the United States and the European Union try to create, Adriano Campolina, head of Action Aid International-Brazil, told IPS.

The increase of South-South trade, just as UNCTAD proposes, is a positive thing: ”it builds new bridges for sustainable development by multiplying the number of trade partners,” he said.

In those countries there are no ”tariff peaks”, which otherwise make exports of some products impossible, especially if one adds value to raw materials, he said.

But agreeing to negotiations on investment and intellectual property at the WTO, in exchange for liberalisation of agricultural markets would be to regress to neo-colonial relations, said Campolina.

Trade ”is a tool, not an end in itself.” Brazil’s foreign trade grew a great deal in the past few years, leading to a surplus, but did nothing to alleviate poverty or resolve the country’s social problems, he added.

According to the activist, it is essential that trade agreements do not impede a country’s ability to promote its own public policies, for example, promoting family farming through government procurement as a means to reduce poverty.

UNCTAD has the chance to establish itself as ”a centre for new ideas”, after it has become evident that the WTO does not attend to the demands of civil society or of governments, says Marcelo Furtado, international relations coordinator for the Brazilian office of the international environmental watchdog Greenpeace.

Its current proposals, such as the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) amongst developing countries, still are ”timid”, says Furtado.

Civil society is calling for the incorporation of sustainability criteria in trade negotiations and assurances that the development agenda will not be privatised, and must remain in the hands of government, he said.

The threat facing UNCTAD is that could align itself with the WTO model, in considering globalisation a positive process, and be satisfied with ”a geographic change” in trade, promoting South- South exchange without altering the economic paradigms, says Furtado.

Peruvian activist Rosa Guillén Velarde, coordinator of the Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy (REMTE), considers UNCTAD’s coordinating role important for strengthening the governments of the South that are under pressure from the United States and the EU.

UNCTAD is also key for promoting ”a more democratic U.N. system in support of development of our countries and our peoples,” she says.

The problem, adds Guillén Velarde, is that while the UNCTAD makes good diagnoses, it lacks coherence with governments to create alternative policies for overcoming poverty and inequalities.

In the name of free trade, for example, ”our governments are coerced into conceding privileges to the big corporations,” therefore international trade is not benefiting the small entrepreneur and is not generating employment, she said.

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