CUTS
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December
22, 2005, The Statesman A World Health Organisation (WHO)-funded study on the availability of essential medicines at state government hospitals across seven districts of West Bengal including Kolkata has found that only one-third of the core list of essential medicines of WHO are available at public hospitals. Funded by WHO and Health Action International (HAI) and authored by Dr Santanu Tripathi, medical superintendent of SSKM Hospital, Dr Avijit Hazra, department of pharmacology, SSKM and Mr Dalia Dey of Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) among others, the survey found that only seven of the 21 drugs identified by WHO as essentials were available at the public hospitals of the state. Thirty two medicines (of which 21 are from the core list of the WHO/HAI methodology), were surveyed in 26 public organisations including rural hospitals and 35 private retail outlets spread over Kolkata and six other districts of West Bengal. Out of the 32 medicines surveyed, only 13 were available at the public hospitals surveyed that included four city-based hospitals — SSKM, RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, NRS Medical College and Hospital and Sambhunath Pandit Hospital. Of the 13 (of the 32) essential medicines available, only amoxicillin 250 mg tablets/capsules showed over 90 per cent availability. Only four of the seven anti-bacterials were available. Isosorbide dinitrate, a very cheap emergency medicine for acute anginal attacks, was not available. The treatment of epilepsy would not be possible at public hospitals as neither phenytoin nor carbamazepine (or for that matter, other antiepileptics) were available. Diazepam tablets too were missing. There were no inhalers for asthmatics and also no drugs to calm acutely agitated psychiatric patients. “The WHO/HAI manual provides a core list of 30 medicines. However, nine core medicines were removed from the survey because of known limited availability in West Bengal. As WHO/HAI methodology provides for inclusion of supplementary medicines reflecting local morbidity patterns, we included 11 medicines, which meant that 32 medicines in all were surveyed,” Mr Dalia Dey, one of the members of the survey team, told The Statesman. The survey also found that medicines were readily
available from private retail counters, but this comes at a price
higher than international reference prices. Standard treatments
are mostly affordable, provided that the earning member of a family
draws minimum daily wages at rates specified by the government,
the survey ruled. The news can be read at:
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Night watchman carries the bat at Hong Kong December 28, 2005, The Hindu The Minister for Commerce, Mr Kamal Nath and his team fielded a good show at the Hong Kong Ministerial. The much-awaited World Trade Organisation's Hong Kong Ministerial, as part of the Doha Development Round, has come and gone. And what has been the outcome? Did the developing countries get anything out of it? There is much debate on what the Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, brought back from Hong Kong. Left leaders Prakash Karat and Anil Biswas were quoted by a daily rating Mr Kamal Nath's performance as `Good', and India's role as positive. "It is true that all our demands are not met. But, given the present situation of the trade talks, it would not have been possible for the Government of India to do much better than what it did at Hong Kong," according to the leaders. That was indeed generous, given that the Left has been attacking both the WTO and the Congress for its globalisation policies. This, in all probability, indicates that when the matter is debated in Parliament the Left has no intentions of attacking the UPA Government. "Laddoos and jalebis for Kamal Nath" wrote Dr Pradeep Mehta of CUTS, who was part of the official Indian delegation to the Hong Kong ministerial, in a business daily. "We need to encourage Nath and his team of bureaucrats, rather than run them down. They are fully conscious of the bigger goal of protecting our farmers and achieving the goal of development not only for India but also for the whole South," he went on. Not much of a difference between the perception of the Left and that of the NGOs. The performance of Mr Kamal Nath and his team can be judged by what was brought back for India at the end of six days of strenuous and acrimonious negotiations. The ministerial negotiations had several aspects. But the key was, of course, agriculture. Team Kamal Nath had a very limited representation of the Agriculture Ministry. But, then, with agriculture's contribution to GDP down to 21 per cent, it no more presents the same interest as it did during the Uruguay Round, even though it sustains 70 per cent of the country's population. The limited advance in the negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) should not weigh disproportionately on one's judgment about what India, as a whole, really gained. The country has much larger interests in the industry and services sectors and inter-sector trade-offs are the reality of the day. As to what India gained from Hong Kong Ministerial, the answer will obviously depend on one's perception of the interests of India as also the expectations one had about the outcome. If one expected that because of the emphasis on the development aspects in this Round, the richer countries would make all the concessions, obviously that did not happen. True, the Hong Kong Declaration assures that the Green Box would be passed in review; that there would be a safe box for the food-aid receiving countries, and that the developing countries would have greater latitude in listing the special products. But the fact remains that the rich countries have not made any concessions on the domestic support in agriculture. Even the export subsidies are to be abolished according to a calendar that suits the European Union. Those who thought that they would get all the concessions from the United States and would not have to make any to Bangladesh in the matter of trade in garments would also be disappointed. Nationalist protectionism invariably has double standards. Its expectations are bound to be frustrated in any trade talks. But no one really expected any significant advance at Hong Kong. In fact, most knowledgeable people knew that there would be a further round of talks, in the near future. That has happened. The new modalities are to be negotiated in another four months. That is rather an ambitious time schedule. But it at least shows the sincerity of the negotiators. There is reason to be happy that Hong Kong was an improvement over the Cancun ministerial. In that there is a common ministerial declaration. The WTO has survived in spite of the verbal tirades and violent protests on the streets of Hong Kong. The ministers have succeeded in moving towards enunciating certain principles and the work programme for future action. The dominant factor at Hong Kong was the consciousness of "the cost of failure". If the ministerial had collapsed as in Cancun, that would have been an irretrievable setback for the WTO. Both the OECD and the developing countries were well aware of this reality. Similarly, everyone was aware of the fact that no agreement could be arrived at Hong Kong and that they were to use the occasion for voicing their concerns. India had played a major role in organising the Group of 20 at Cancun. At Hong Kong, a strong bridge was built between the G-20 and the G-110 that represents the developing and the least developed countries. After the joint meeting of the G-110 and the European Union, it was clear to all that the poorer countries were in no mood to give any thing way without a stiff resistance. Mr Kamal Nath played a major role by becoming a prominent interlocutor for the group. It is the consolidation of the G-110 and the G-20 that forced the European Union to make a major concession on export subsidies on the very last day. The Hong Kong Ministerial has kept the hope alive. If it took 60 years for the GATT (General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs) to blossom into the WTO, the WTO agreements will take a much shorter period to bring in a world, if not sans frontiers, at least with minimal barricades. Nothing palpably concrete came out of the Hong Kong Ministerial. So, it would be wrong to deride or play up Mr Kamal Nath's role. After the Doha conference there was a stalemate. The Cancun ministerial failed. Mr Kamal Nath was sent as the night watchman to keep the innings going until the real stroke-play starts. The Minister (and his Team of 80) has done quite well at the crease. He should be feeling quietly confident of giving a good account of himself in four month's time. URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/12/28/stories/2005122800281000.htm |
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December 23, 2005, The Hindu The Indian delegation at the just-concluded Hong Kong World Trade Organisation Ministerial conference was better prepared than in the previous rounds, parliamentarians, cutting across political parties, said on Wednesday. The fact that the conference did not break down was "a success in itself," they said at a meeting held here under the banner of the Parliamentarians Forum on Economic Policy Issues. The former Maharashtra Governor and independent member of the Rajya Sabha, P. C. Alexander, said duty and quota-free market access to the least developed countries was cause for concern in India. This news can also be viewed at: |
India's liberalisation policy may weaken position at WTO: Sinha December 22, 2005, ZEE News India's policy of opening up the economy on its own and without any pressure from other countries may weaken its negotiating position at the WTO, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said. "India through its liberalization is moving forward. Our average tariffs came down to 20 per cent. However, it is feared that this autonomous liberalization will weaken our negotiating position in the WTO," he said, at a discussion under the banner of the Parliamentarians Forum on Economic Policy Issues (PAR-FORE). Other MPs who took part in the discussions of PAR-FORE, constituted at the initiative of cuts international, were of the opinion that there has been a major change in the negotiating skills of India and other developing countries in comparison to the Uruguay round of GATT. Sinha said, India was now better organised than the previous rounds. "As the negotiations are getting complex
we are increasingly improving our preparedness towards negotiations.
Now, there is a greater interest both inside and outside the Parliament
on trade related matters," he said. |
Pascal Lamy's Letter to Editor December 21, 2005, The Hindu Business
Line WTO
draft It has the advantage of mirroring faithfully the situation of the negotiation, not introducing through the back door convergence, which did not appear by the front door. It has the inconvenience of mirroring faithfully the situation of the negotiation… which is 5 per cent above the July framework… 50 per cent of the road, as can be seen by the final text. This text was adopted by the General Council, which has not happened since 10 years. On balance, I believe that, given the very short time remaining for the negotiation in 2006, a clean mirror should be the best incentive to move forward. Pascal Lamy |
NGOs flay WTO Ministerial agreement December 18, 2005, PTI Expressing dissappointment over the WTO deal, leading civil society organisations today flayed the sixth WTO Ministerial declaration saying developed countries must do much more for a fair outcome. The World Development Movement said the gains from the 2013 as the end date for elimination of export subsidies had been blown out of proportion. "Setting the date of 2013 to end export subsidies is a symbolic gesture of marginal benefit, made ten years late," Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement said. Action Aid said, "poor countries cannot wait for eight years to see an end to EU's export subsidies. The offer means that yet again, minority interests are put before the needs of the majority of the world's population". Another leading NGO Green Peace also said the agreement on 2013 as the date of elimination of export subsidies was only a symbolic gesture. "This text is only a symbolic gesture, creating the delusion that the developed countries have given something in return for the concessions they have extracted from developing countries, " the organisation said. CUTS International described the deal as a mixed bag and a forward movement over the July package of 2004. URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$all/6FFE083B3A6E75C2652570DB005176CD |
WTO: Consumers are prisoners of this war December 13-19, 2005, The
Monitor What could a recovering HIV/Aids patient admitted at Kabale Hospital and a half-naked, emaciated woman standing with a loaded bowl at a relief distribution point in an Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camp in Gulu, have in common? One would say, both are overwhelmed by the predicament they are faced with and require help from outside. Also, both are consumers: the latter is a consumer of aid (mainly from the USA) and the former is a healthcare consumer fighting for dear life with help of free life-sustaining anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy accessed through a state-funded (but donor supported!) distribution programme. And well as the above observations are correct, we may be looking at symptoms. The root cause remains concealed from ordinary eyes. It is an apparent paradox: the two people could be pawns or accidental beneficiaries in a skewed global trading system under the aegis of the Word Trade Organisation (WTO). The system continues to lock out poor countries from partaking benefits that their rich counterparts enjoy. With the sixth meeting of the highest decision-making body in the WTO, the Ministerial Conference, starting today in Hong Kong, China, its time to take stock of where we stand in the global trading system. Like the Cancun (Mexico) Ministerial meeting, the Hong Kong summit is already widely seen as a likely flop. For a decade now, grim-faced developing countries have waited to smile. The emotional feeling has been motivated by expectations that efforts aimed at regulating world trade, under the WTO, would enable poor countries to reap from a rules-based trading system. Their dreams are yet to turn into reality. According to the Draft Ministerial Text (DMT), the beef is mainly around trade liberalisation - agriculture and non-agricultural products. Other issues include; trade facilitation, special and differential treatment (a kind of affirmative action to poor countries), trade and environment, Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPS) and public health. However, in a pre-conference analysis, renowned consumer activists and WTO critics, Pradeep S. Mehta and Pranav Kumar, maintain that progress on all these issues is highly dependent upon substantial movement on the core issues of trade liberalisation, particularly agriculture. The main additional issues at Hong Kong will include trade and aid for trade. But let us see how the victims at Kabale and Gulu fit into the picture. First, availability of free ARVs came about after immense pressure from an increasingly powerful civil society lobby interspersed with a few feeble public sector voices from poor countries. The picketing of civil society melted the hitherto
strong resistance against relaxing the global intellectual property
(IP) regime through lacing it with a humanitarian appeal. They
discussed figures reflecting that every year, millions of poor
people die of malaria, Aids, TB, diarrhoea among other ailments,
for lack of basic drugs. Universal compliance with TRIPS meant that cheap generic drugs would disappear from drugstore shelves and community health facilities like the one at Kabale. This appeared to pierce the hearts of the rich countries. Accordingly, during the Doha Round of the WTO trade negotiations, poor countries were given a lifeline: compliance with TRIPS was pushed up to 2016 (in case of pharmaceuticals). But given a second look, it was a convenient trade-off; to contain noise and attention from the more contentious negotiations on agriculture trade, the broad area under which we shall later examine the woman from the IDP in Gulu. International trade data suggests that the multi-billion dollar global pharmaceuticals industry can at most get a tiny scratch when the status quo prevailed for a while. Africa's share in the pharmaceuticals market is an insignificant 1 percent; even when the other developing countries are considered (minus India, china and Brazil), the figures remain in single digit. And how does the IDP fit into the picture of global trade? International aid programmes, it is widely observed, are a conduit for off-loading surplus production from agricultural giants, the USA and the EU. Highly subsidised, yet employing a tiny fraction, the developed country agricultural steamroller continues to stifle poor countries' efforts to compete favourably and access markets. This costs jobs, threatens food security, sovereignty and upsets prudential fiscal planning. Of course Pascal Lamy's WTO was not even established when the 20-year civil war in northern Uganda started. Neither is the organisation and the system it nourishes directly behind the high HIV/Aids infection rates in poor developing countries, including Uganda. But let us peer a little further. If the global pharmaceutical industry was not motivated by the huge profits partly buttressed by the prevailing patent regime, perhaps several manufacturers could have been humane enough and dedicated a substantial part of their research and development budgets to finding a cure for malaria, HIV/Aids and the other 'diseases of the poor.' Moved by pictures depicting malnutrition and despondency in Africa as is often relayed on network TV channels, the rich countries would, through their respective agricultural policies, protect the livelihood of over 70 percent of the wretched people in poor countries who entirely depend on agriculture. That has been the long held story. Yet, against the above common wisdom, the World Food Programme last week threw a spanner in the works: the global food aid agency suggested that food aid consumers and poor farmers are simply being used as pawns by poor countries to drum up reforms that would win them badly needed concessions from their developed counterparts. The agency said the global humanitarian food aid system and trade are two separate things and should not be fused during the negotiations. With this ammunition, the developed world should step to the new battlefront with fresh blood. Like renowned Kenyan activist Oduor Ongwen said recently, international trade is like war; one has to fight to retain ground, while making efforts to capture some more. I should add that in this perpetual war, the consumer could conveniently be taken as prisoner of war, or might suffer the fate of the grass (denoted in a common cliché), depending on what side he/she is found whenever fresh battles breakout. This article can also be viewed at:
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December 15, 2005, The Himachal Times Farmers must have their say on the question of sharing the natural resources preserved by them over hundreds of years. This was emphasized at a capacity building workshop organized in Dehradun by Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS), Calcutta and the Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra (RLEK) Dehradun. In the context of WTO, the question of prior informed consent of the farmers and the principals of benfit sharing by them with any external individual, institution or organization has become extremely important. Vijay Kumar Dhaundiyal, additional secretary, Minster of Agriculture, Government of Uttaranchal, inaugurated the workshop. In his keynote address, SMA Kazmi described the plight of farmers in the mountain regions of the country, especially in the central Himalayas, inspite of the extremely rich natural resources of the region, and their profound traditional knowledge in this regard. He observed that the WTO regime has put intense pressure on our government to do away with all kind subsidies and determined by the developed countries regarding agriculture seeds, crops etc. Among the other speaks and participants Shishir Prashant, Dr. Ghayur Alam, Director Centre for Sustainable Development, Dehradun, discussed briefly the basic issue concerning WTO and its pros and cons in respect of the farmers and their rights. Kunwar Prasun of “Beej Bachao Andolan” from Tehri Garhwal shared elaborately the traditional knowledge and practices of the farmers of Garhwal Himalayas, which are now increasingly threatening by the tendencies of monoculture. A large number of farmers and NGO functionaries from different parts of Garhwal participated in the day long discussion. Many of them raised a number of relevant questions and gave their observations and perception about the external interventio0ns and the extremely inadequate role of the government. Prof Nabin Sen of the Calcutta University wrapped up the workshop. |
December 10, 2005, The Hindu A "Parliamentarians' Forum on Economic Policy Issues", comprising 45 members of various parties, has been launched here. Meant to be a bipartisan platform to address economic issues, it has been set up by CUTS International, a research, advocacy and networking group, working on policy issues. The MPs, who were present at the launch, felt that India needed a stronger regulatory framework and that regulators should be made accountable to Parliament instead of to ministries. |
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December 09, 2005, Dainik Bhaskar
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December 09, 2005, Rajasthan Patrika
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December 05, 2005, THE POST ZAMBIA needs to identify and implement national agricultural projects if she is to benefit from the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) it has been observed. Stakeholders at a recent workshop on NEPAD agriculture programmes organized by PELUM Association Zambia, and Consumer Unity and Trust Society-Africa Resource Centre (CUTS-ARC) agreed that the country currently had scanty benefits from the continental initiative. They identified projects deemed relevant under NEPAD, which they recommended Zambia to pursue. These include capacity building for small-scale farmers on the use of land and water systems, construction and improvement of rural road network, fish farming and fish conservation, rice growing, sugar cane growing and processing, cassava project in all rainfall regions, constructing and renovation of existing dams and the development of agriculture market information systems. The stakeholders noted the importance of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the need to streamline it into national policy in order to promote agriculture in Zambia. The vision for agriculture is embedded under CAADP, which is sanctioned on four pillars. These are : extending the area under sustainable land management And reliable water control system, improving rural infrastructure and market access, including inputs and finance, increasing food supply and reducing hunger and agriculture research and technology. The stakeholders observed that the dependence of most Zambian farmers on seasonal rainfall has contributed to food insecurity in the nation, in instances of late rains or droughts. They recommended the encouragement of water harvesting technologies and the promote irrigation to encourage productiveness, throughout the year. However, they noted that a major constraint to the use of modern irrigation techniques was electricity, of which is concentrated along the line of rail to the disadvantage of small scale farmers. They recommended that electricity should also be taken to rural areas. The stakeholders also identified the problems pertaining to market access, including inputs and finance. They said there was inadequate transportation facilities to enable agriculture products access the domestic markets, which was worsened by the absence of market information. They said this situation resulted in farmers selling produce at a price below the production costs. They recommended that in order for farmers to realize profits from agriculture produce it is important that they are provided with a well net worked transportation system, which will provide efficiency and reduce the cost of production. |
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December 03, 2005, Asia Times Ask Sompal Chaudhuri, a farmer in western Uttar Pradesh, what he thinks of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and he will tell you that those three letters, in a language he does not understand, have something to do with dwindling demand for the mustard oil seed he grows. Beyond that, WTO, or for that matter the whole alphabet soup of acronyms - TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights), TRIMS (trade-related investment measures), NAMA (non-agricultural market access), ROO (rules of origin), ATC (Agreement on Textiles and Clothing), GATS (general agreement on trade in services) and SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) - make no sense whatever. "I just hope that our babus [bureaucrats] understand these things and get us a better deal, but it seems they know little about farming and have even less interest in trade," he said. "The complexities of the WTO are not understood even by well-educated individuals," said Pradeep S Mehta, secretary general of the Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) International, a research and advocacy-oriented non-governmental organization (NGO) based in the Indian city of Jaipur and specializing in World Trade Organization issues. Mehta recalled an instance when a senior civil servant from the government of India asked him what the word "acquis" meant. "I, too, was frankly stumped," said Mehta, explaining the word could not be located in a dictionary of legal terms. "Eventually we discovered that acquis is a French word referring to the total body of law in the European Union that has been cumulatively assembled so far." It is on such shaky terminological grounds that the futures of large numbers of people - some 800 million farmers, artisans and industrial workers in India alone - are going to be decided, thanks to the regulations they seek for movement of their goods and services across international boundaries. But the jargon is unavoidable, Mehta said. Each
discipline demands expertise and deals with subjects that are
inherently complex, even esoteric, and cannot be simplified beyond
a point." "Jargon is inevitable," said economist Bibek Debroy, who has authored and edited eight books on WTO-related subjects since 1992. "But there would be no contradiction if one simultaneously argues that there is a strong case for simplifying trade-related issues for a wider audience." Take the noun "non-paper", which sounds like an oxymoron (a word or phrase that is apparently incongruous or contradictory), but is often used as a diplomatic technique. In the WTO, when a country presents a non-paper it means its government has made a certain submission during negotiations or discussions to which it is not bound. In other words, a so-called non-paper contains a specific viewpoint of a government at a particular juncture that could change subsequently. Biswajit Dhar, professor at the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi, is of the view that excessive use of jargon at the WTO often mystifies the real issues and concerns of large numbers of people. "Developed countries make attempts to have their way in trade negotiations by using words and phrases that cannot be easily comprehended by representatives of less-developed countries," Dhar said. He pointed out that many of the 148 member countries of the WTO do not have the resources and experts to study and understand the complex factors that determine the direction and flow of world trade. Therefore, they cannot participate in negotiations as equals. For example, developed countries have succeeded in imposing stringent intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products and food safety standards on items exported by developing countries, Dhar said, adding that this effectively deprives these countries of easy access to the markets of wealthy nations. Mehta is of the view that it is not easy to simplify the nitty-gritty of trade rules without making them overly simplistic. "Four years ago, we translated a book on GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the predecessor to the WTO] from English to Hindi and had found the going extremely difficult." Even the title of the CUTS publication "Unpacking the GATT" had to be translated to "GATT ke rahasya", which literally means "Mysteries of the GATT". Debroy thinks the Indian government is doing much more than it did in the past to make its position on WTO issues public by providing more information on its websites. As executive head of a powerful Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi, he said industry associations needed to go beyond large cities and reach out to people in small towns, adding that the business media in India often did not explain issues - for example, what the "Swiss formula" on farm subsidies implied. Civil society organizations are perhaps best placed to explain the implications of WTO regulations to ordinary people, Debroy feels. He added a caveat that NGOs should differentiate between facts and opinion, news and views - which, in his opinion, they sometimes do not. All stakeholders must consciously start addressing the deficit in communications as far as the WTO is concerned, Dhar said. "Lack of clarity on trade-related issues leads to a lot of misunderstanding and even the spread of falsehoods." The WTO is often unfairly portrayed as the villain or is held responsible for all kinds of ills of developing countries, including the fact thousands of farmers have committed suicide in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh - a state that has taken heartily to globalization - because of their inability to repay loans. "Even if some of us are of the view that the WTO system has so far tended to benefit the developed world rather than developing countries, my opinion would be a bit more nuanced," Dhar said. The Geneva-based international body still has the potential to uphold the interests of developing countries and play an important balancing role in rapidly expanding global trade, he said. But if it is serious about that role, it could
start ensuring that the representatives of less-developed countries
are suitably empowered to negotiate with officials of developed
countries who are better acquainted with the intricacies of WTO
negotiations - as well as the jargon deployed by them, Dhar said. |
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November 30, 2005, THE POST SOME African leaders have been having wrong expectations of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Canadian High Commissioner John Deyell has observed. During a workshop on NEPAD agriculture activities at Chrismar Hotel yesterday, High Commissioner Deyell said many African presidents have been complaining that NEPAD is not delivering according to what they expected it to deliver. They complain that many infrastructure development progammes are not financed under NEPAD. There has been disillusionment that huge government-funded infrastructure programmes are not funded from NEPAD funds. It is a wrong expectation. I am not sure that is what NEPAD promised to deliver.” He said. High Commissioner Deyell said NEPAD’s emphasis was putting in place a good governance mechanism to attract private sector Investment. He said some countries had already started benefiting from it. “The emphasis was on regional cooperation and it is bearing fruit for Zambia,” he said. Referring to the Zambia/Namibia Bridge, the proposed Zambia/Botswana Bridge and Zambia/Malawi railway line, High Commissioner Deyell said such infrastructure programmes were in the spirit of NEPAD. “I don’t see why African leaders are complaining.” he said. He said NEPAD provides one of those Pan-African frame-works, which is capturing world attention very effectively. He, however, said NEPAD would mean nothing until Individual countries picked it up, people understood it and consequently put pressure on their governments to start living up to the principles of NEPAD. The dialogue that happens between African leaders and the developed world started in 2001 in the context of GS and issues of Africa have been put forward at various fora. The principles that attracted world leaders were two: The admission that Africa was responsible for its own destiny and that Africans would hold each other accountable for good governance.” He said. The workshop, organized by Participatory Ecological Land-Use Management (PELUM) association and Consumer Unity and Trust Society – Africa Resource Centre (CUTS-ARC), is being held as activity under the partnership project titled: Information-based Advocacy, Networking, and Capacity Building on NEPAD in Zambia, supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The workshop, aims at integrating NEPAD agriculture programmes into the National Development Plan, and build capacity among development actors from both civil society and government to have a comprehensive understanding of the NEPAD agricultural programmes. PELUM board chairperson Jonathan Chisaka said the workshop was another voice to enhance agriculture. Chisaka said the agricultural sector was facing massive problems and that certain problems such as weather pattern changes are beyond human capacity. “But there are things humans can put in place to ensure that they solve these problems. We can direct our energies to solve those problems. We hope we will tap what NEPAD has to offer in terms of agriculture, he said. Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflections (JCTR) director Fr Peter Henriot said agriculture was essential to Zambia’s development considering its impact on feeding people, providing employment and exports. Fr Henriot said it was relieving that agriculture featured so well, at least in words, in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme and the National Development Plan. |
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November 29, 2005, HT Live To make governance, institutional strengthening and infrastructural development key elements for development and poverty reduction in developing countries, experts felt that emphasis needs to be laid on trade liberalisation and other trade reforms. Supporting the theme, Cuts international in cooperation with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINBUZA) organised a Symposium titled ‘Exploring Linkages between Trade, Development and Poverty Reduction,’ in Geneva recently. Participants included representatives from many European development ministries, developing country WTO missions, UNCTAD, UNDP, World Bank, and academic and civil society organisations from across Africa, Asia and Europe, where the project is being implemented. Opening the conference, CUTS secretary general, Pradeep S Mehta gave an overview of the project’s objectives – gathering new insights into trade linkages, poverty reduction and communicating these to national and international policy-makers so that trade policy responds to the needs of the poor. Illustrating the project’s importance by quoting from a recent dialogue in China where a participant stated, “we understand the linkages between trade, development and poverty in our country better than they (global policy-makers) do.” UNCTAD, Division on International Trade in Goods, Services and Commodities, director; Lakshmi Puri said initiatives like it were ‘vital to giving marginalised groups in developing countries a voice to advocate the type of reforms that will empower them to develop secure livelihoods”. Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade, director general, Anders Ahnlid, spoke on the importance of ‘development’ in taking forward Doha round of trade talks. In the first session, the discussions focussed on how the project can develop synergy with other relevant initiatives taking place in the project countries. Margaret Chemengich from Kenyan Ministry of Trade said, “Although improvements were made in developing electricity and telecommunications infrastructure, access to this is still prohibitively expensive to many of the poor in Kenya”. A Uganda-based consultant, Alexander Werth said, a recent study he undertook “found that a wide range of trade related technical assistance (TRTA) projects supported by global donors lack domestic ownership and are directed by a donor led-agenda that is often unresponsive to priorities of the developing countries receiving the support”. He added “more needs to be done to engage
civil society organisations in the debate surrounding the TRTA
design interventions so that they respond to the people’s
needs at the grassroots level.” World Bank, International
Trade Department, senior advisor, Carlos Braga expressed concern
that international donors are failing to co-ordinate their TRTA
activities with each other and those being undertaken by developing
countries. These reforms should be co-ordinated with national
development strategies to ensure domestic ownership, he stressed.
Sustainable Development policy Institute in Pakistan, assistant
Executive president Dr. Abid Suleri, emphasised the need for nations
supplying aid to support trade expansion, to respond coherently
to these challenges. |
US, EU must eliminate subsidies to move forward in WTO: India September 22, 2005, DAILY NEWS, Sri Lanka India said it cannot open up its agriculture market further for developed nations unlessl the US and EU eliminate their trade-distorting subsidies. “We cannot open our agriculture markets till the billions of dollars of trade distorting subsidies are eliminated.” Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, G.K. Pillai said at a CUTS seminar on WTO Saturday. Agriculture talks at the WTO headquarters in Geneva are stalled, he said, adding there can be no substantial progress on the contentious issue till India gets clear signals that the EU and US are willing to move forward. Pillai said the G-20 group of developing countries in their recent meeting in Pakistan had clearly sought time bound phasing out of domestic support and elimination of export credits by the developed nations.
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| ‘Development’ is the key for the success of the WTO Doha Round September 19, 2005, Weste |
