WTO-CANCUN: UN Makes The Most of Observer Status

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ramesh Jaura

CANCUN, Sep 15 2003 (IPS) - Though the UN was only an observer at the five-day WTO conference, it made a significant contribution by highlighting issues of genuine concern to the marginalised and disempowered in the developing lands.

In a message, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan implored the ministers from 146 WTO member states “to say ‘no’ to trade policies that aggravate poverty” and urged them “to say ‘yes’ to bold but sensible steps that will revive the global economy and set a new course for development”.

Annan’s message, delivered at the opening session by the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rubens Ricupero, was historical both in its frankness and profound commitment to the need to “rebuild faith in the multilateral trade framework”.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) followed up on Annan’s message by playing an honest broker between the industrialised and developing countries.

In meetings with heads of delegations and members of several groups, the non-governmental organisations and the media, a UNDP team headed by Hafiz Pasha stressed the need for making the global trade regime more ‘development friendly’ and better oriented towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Pasha is Assistant Secretary-General of the UNDP and its Assistant Administrator. Senior advisers on globalisation, trade and debt, Kamal Malhotra, Murray Gibbs and David Luke backed him.

Stressing the need for agricultural reform, a central theme of the WTO conference, Pasha argued that 70 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture.

The Millennium Goal of reducing poverty and target of halving the proportionate people earning less than one dollar per day can only be achieved by improving the lot of poor farmers and creating viable agricultural communities, he said.

”Poor farmers cannot escape the poverty trap, if they are forced to compete with products subsidised by the treasuries of the richest countries, in world trade and their own domestic markets,” Pasha said in meetings with developed country representatives.

He urged the European Union (EU), Japan and the U.S. to reduce subsidies, cut tariff and non-tariff protection and avoid a tariffs escalation. The recent decision to reform the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy was a positive step, but this needed be translated into practice, Pasha said.

A related issue is the crisis in commodities. Since the mid-1990s, prices have collapsed for several major export commodities of developing countries. This and deteriorating terms of trade have had dramatic implications for human development: reduced employment, lower wages and incomes, vulnerable livelihoods, and less access to basic social services.

An agreement on commodities must therefore embrace the principles of fair trade and must cover supply issues as well as market access: a subject that was intensely debated at the WTO conference.

The UNDP team sought to highlight yet another issue from a perspective of significance to the developing countries.

It pleaded for “progress on the movement of natural persons in the GATS negotiations”. This, the UNDP says, can assist people in developing countries to derive greater benefits from the process of globalisation and foster attainment of the MDGs.

WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commits member governments to undertake a wide-ranging work programme, some of which had to start immediately after the GATS came into effect in January 1995.

Pasha said: “It could be a tangible indicator of progress towards a global partnership for development.”

According to estimates, an increase in workers’ quotas by developed countries equivalent to one percent of their own labour market would generate an annual gain for developing countries equivalent to the current level of official development assistance (ODA), amounting to some 50 billion dollars a year.

The benefit would accrue from money sent home by developing country expatriates in industrialised states.

The UNDP pleads for including specific categories of occupations “where developing countries have a comparative advantage, and where greater opportunity to work abroad could support human development objectives”.

In the GATS negotiations progressive liberalisation is being sought in areas such as water, energy, health and education. “All of these are basic public services critical to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the international community,” Pasha told IPS.

“While liberalisation in these sectors, if done gradually and appropriately, can provide needed capital and technology, it is vital that developing countries ensure than any commitments they make in these sectors protect the access of the poor to basic utilities and are in their national interest,” Pasha said.

Liberalisation should not mean privatisation. That would be counterproductive.

UNDP is involved in a range of activities on trade-related issues. In particular, it focuses on trade negotiations as part of MDG and capacity development.

According to a policy paper, current activities at global, regional and national levels include advocacy on the linkages between trade, human development and the MDGs through country reports.

The development arm of the UN also conducts policy-oriented studies and discussions at the national level, encompassing government officials, parliamentarians and stakeholders from civil society and the private sector.

It also does analytical work to improve the trade negotiating position of poor countries that has helped them at the WTO conference in Cancun.

The UNDP facilitates donor coordination and South-South cooperation on trade-related issues. It has established a corporate database as a tool for knowledge sharing on experiences gathered in trade capacity development.

“The poverty and MDG knowledge networks provide a platform for discussion of pro-poor issues of which trade is a subset,” said UNDP’s Assistant Administrator Pasha.