TRADE: UNCTAD and Civil Society in Dialogue, but Differences Remain

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 8 2004 (IPS) - Civil society will be an opposing but cooperative presence at the eleventh United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XI) next week in Sao Paulo, not mere naysayers, according to activists.

Although UNCTAD is critical of the existing globalisation process, “it is still based on the idea that trade should be intensified in order to promote development,” which is an inadequate approach and could entail distortions, says Sergio Haddad, head of the Sao Paulo group Açao Educativa (Education Action).

“International trade at any price and competition based on low wages, on slave labour,” does not lead to what society really wants, which is “human development with sustainability and distribution of wealth,” he said in a conversation with IPS.

Haddad says it is essential to combine international trade regulation with respect for human rights and to work towards a more just society.

But those who support more trade as a factor of development generally point to the example of the Asian countries, where there might be improvement in some economic indicators but “the labour force suffers greater exploitation,” he said.

Despite their differences with the UNCTAD approach, more than 300 non-governmental groups and social movements from around the world will participate in the Civil Society Forum in the context of the UNCTAD XI, Jun. 13-18 in Sao Paulo.

The activists and experts will debate and approve a manifesto to be read at the opening ceremonies of the UNCTAD XI, to take place Jun. 14, and is expected to outline a reorganisation of the international system and alternatives to the existing international free trade model.

“It is an opportunity for dialogue and we believe we should make the most of it,” said Haddad, one of the organisers of the Civil Society Forum, as international relations director of the Brazilian Association of NGOs (ABONG).

Representatives from the civil society groups will also have a voice in several of UNCTAD’s intergovernmental sessions. Ricupero, meanwhile, will take part in dialogue at the parallel forum, as will U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Then, and until the Forum ends on Jun. 17, the activists will follow their own agenda, discussing issues like economics of solidarity, globalisation, international governance, human rights and fair trade.

The result “will be our stance on the relationship between trade and development,” says Iara Pietricovsky, coordinator of the Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples, which is also involved in organising the Forum.

The aim is to influence the UNCTAD debates “without the naiveté of believing we will be able to change the course of international trade,” and to inform the world’s people about “what the current global model of hegemony and imbalance means,” she said.

The civil society groups also seek to prevent the United States and European Union from reducing UNCTAD to a mere technical adviser for Africa and other lesser-developed countries, added Pietricovsky.

She charges that the two trade powers want to limit trade debate and keep it within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where they impose “equal treatment for unequals” to the detriment of poor countries.

The pressures of industrialised countries on UNCTAD have been manifest for several years in the reduction of financial contributions to the Conference and the harsh attacks against the ideas the U.N. body defends, such as the condemnation of farm subsidies, she said.

Pietricovsky reckons it is important to maintain the Conference’s current mandate, as the “producer of technical knowledge for confronting global inequalities” and as the only institution “that proposes alternative paths of development.”

UNCTAD XI, however, tends to challenge the industrial powers by promoting greater rapprochement of developing countries at a time in which North-South disputes have been accentuated, especially in regards to agricultural subsidies.

During the intergovernmental meet, a new round of talks will be launched for the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP), a mechanism exclusive to developing countries, created in the 1980s to foment South-South exchange.

So far, it has not met its objective, but 44 countries recently decided to reactivate the programme, believing that better conditions exist today to achieve efficiency, and because trade amongst developing nations has grown notably in recent years, in large part driven by China’s economic and trade expansion.

All of this points to an UNCTAD that could reaffirm the power of the former “Third World” upon new and more pragmatic bases, strengthened by what is known as the Doha Round, which the WTO ministers approved in 2001 in the Qatari capital, with its “Development Agenda” and recognising the need to correct the distortions in farm trade.