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Wednesday, August 19, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Trade and poverty: Facts beyond theory
TRADE-MALAWI: Tobacco Industry Going Up in Smoke
Tobacco prices and production levels are dropping amid pressure from the anti-smoking lobby and the general downturn in agricultural produce markets. But Malawi has still not made adequate progress in promoting crops to replace its primary foreign exchange earner.TRADE-KENYA: East Africans May Be Stripped of the Kikoi
Kenyan activists are fighting to retain cultural designs that have been developed in East Africa but are being patented by companies in rich countries. After losing the kiondo basket trademark to Japan, the popular kikoi fabric design is currently at risk of being patented by a British company.TRADE-KENYA: Shopping With a Clean Conscience
It is early morning and the Undugu Fair Trade Shop, tucked away in a suburban shopping centre in Nairobi, is bustling. Apart from the few locals, there are the usual tourists, recognizable from their safari outfits: khaki shirts and trousers and the obligatory hat worn even when indoors.DEVELOPMENT: Campaigners Counter Privatisation Source
Anti-poverty campaigners are calling on the European Union's developing aid chief not to renew the contract of an industrialist advising him on the role of the private sector in Africa.TRADE-ZAMBIA: Is China Sneaking in Deals Through the Back Door?
The recent state visit by Chinese president Hu Jintao has sparked renewed debates among Zambians about whether their country is receiving real benefits from its close economic relations with the Asian giant.TRADE-MAURITIUS: EU Assisting in Revamp of Sugar Cane Industry
Sugar cane has been associated with Mauritius for over 367 years, shaping many aspects of the history and culture of the island state. The arrival of renewable energy technologies has made sugar cane even more important to the Mauritian economy.EUROPE: Poor Need More Than a Declaration
The 50th anniversary of the European Union has been marked by a declaration committing the 27-country bloc to "drive back poverty, hunger and disease" throughout the world.DEVELOPMENT: ‘Trade Must Cut Poverty’
European Union officials devising a new strategy on helping poor countries boost their share of world trade have warned that it must contain concrete measures for reducing poverty.TRADE-AFRICA: Liberalisation May Boost Growth But Not Create Jobs
Even if trade openness boosts economic growth, such growth may not create jobs or alleviate poverty. Therefore the much-vaunted Aid for Trade concept should be redesigned so that ‘‘the major focus is shifted from simply creating more trade to the more important objectives of poverty reduction''.DEVELOPMENT: Free Trade Enslaving Poor Countries
The new free trade agreements being signed up between rich and poor countries are proving far more damaging to the poor than anything envisaged within WTO talks, Oxfam said in a report Tuesday.DEVELOPMENT: Some More Unequal to EU Than Others
The European Union's development aid chief has been accused of prioritising central African countries for which he has a personal fixation at the expense of other needy nations.AFRICA-EUROPE: Goodbye Rhetoric, Hello Political Dialogue
In recent years the ties between the European Union and Africa have produced good results in terms of aid, but there has been a serious lack of political dialogue. Now Portugal, with its extensive experience in Africa and the support of the 27 EU leaders, is planning to change this.TRADE: Meeting Fails to Close Gap on Regional Deals
As president of the European Union Council for the first half of this year, Germany sought to play a prominent role at a meeting of EU development ministers in Bonn Mar. 13.TRADE: Promises Go One Way, Subsidies Another
Africa's leading cotton producing countries - Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad - are upset over Washington's continued failure to implement the commitments it undertook at the World Trade Organisation's Hong Kong ministerial Meeting in 2005 to address the distortions caused by the U.S. subsidies in the global cotton trade.TRADE: Poor Face Up to EU Arm-Twisting
Europe's highest-ranking trade official has claimed that the entire African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) bloc is committed to reaching controversial free trade deals with the EU by the end of this year. Not everyone from the ACP group thinks so.TRADE: Poor Infrastructure Undermines Food Safety in West Africa
A container ship is docked at Ghana's Tema port, stuffed to the brim with frozen food products, including thousands of metric tonnes of poultry parts recently arrived from Brazil. These are unloaded into cold storage facilities until they can be transported to the capital of Accra or elsewhere in the country.TRADE: Europe Grapples With the Future of ACP Sugar Imports
The European Union (EU) has imported sugar at preferential prices from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries since the 1970s; but, failed sugar reform within the union and the prospect of unlimited imports from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the near future have put a question mark over this arrangement.TRADE: EU in Dialogue of the Deaf with Poor Countries
The European Commission and a grouping of countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific are no nearer an agreement on trade liberalisation after their latest effort.TRADE: Developing Countries Fight Another Formula
Several developing countries have sharply criticised fresh attempts by the European Union and the United States to pry open their industrial markets through a controversial Swiss formula.« Previous Page
Trade has historically been a geopolitical tool, creating significant economic imbalances in developing countries. However, many countries in East Asia and Latin America have been able to alleviate poverty due to increasing trade. Tackling poverty has proven to be much harder in low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and their dismal trade performance is one important reason for that. They remain at the margins of world trade and indeed of the world economy. These articles are aimed at informing readers about the complexities of trade and its varying effects on development, with a special focus on the consequences of the global economic crisis, the potential of fair trade and the gender implications of trade policies.
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