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Church World Service Says WTO Meeting a Lost Opportunity
Haitian girl selling bread
Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT-CWS
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NEW YORK / WASHINGTON, D.C. – "The lost opportunity to address the development needs of even the poorest of the poor countries by this meeting reveals the dismaying role of richer countries," summarized advocacy management of global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) on the recent meetings of the World Trade Organization.
"The wealthy industrialized countries squarely refused even to consider the impact of the $300 billion domestic subsidies to their agriculture sector, and only grudgingly agreed to end a mere $5 billion export subsidies on agriculture products by 2013," observed Rajyashri Waghray, director of the CWS Education and Advocacy Program.
Domestic farm subsidies, rather than export subsidies, are the major reason why exported U.S. and European goods unfairly force down the prices of cotton and basic grains such as corn and rice. Referred to as "dumping," this practice bankrupts small farmers and devastates rural employment in developing countries. But this form of subsidies was untouched by the Hong Kong agreement.
While wealthy countries agreed to open their markets to products from the least developed countries, they can still protect three percent of their product lines. Martin Shupack, CWS Associate Director for Public Policy, comments "this does not sound like much, but it means that they can effectively block imports of important products from developing countries, such as textiles and sugar."
Framework agreements on services, such as banking, telecommunications, water and healthcare, as well as on non-agricultural and manufactured products, create new peril for developing countries. A new approach to services negotiations will put greater pressure on developing countries to privatize essential services and open them up to ownership by multinational corporations. The resulting price increases will further burden impoverished communities.
The tariff reduction formula adopted at Hong Kong for manufactured products is expected to lead to further de-industrialization and greater unemployment, according to Shupack.
Waghray notes that developing countries did gain some ability to provide limited protection from harmful liberalization for some self-designated "special products." They will also have recourse to "special safeguard measures" which could be invoked in the face of import surges or especially low import prices. However, the details of these protections have yet to be determined, and the rich countries clearly have retained much more ability to protect their own markets.
Waghray points out that "the small concessions won by the poor countries were achieved through their grit and determination to sink or sail together."
The Rev. John L. McCullough, executive director and CEO of CWS, decried the "growing inequality" between rich nations and poor nations, which "the Hong Kong agreements do nothing to reverse." He went on to say, "It violates the bonds of human community when billions of our fellow human beings are marginalized, oppressed, and nearly crushed under an intolerable weight of hunger, poverty, disease, and hopelessness."
Church World Service is engaged with networks of actual communities' practice of sustainable development, which model alternatives to policies currently in place. In particular, Waghray points to work in Southern Africa with the Southern Africa economic justice network and engagement with the South African trade minister, Mandisi Mpahlwa. Similar work is to be undertaken through regional partners in Brazil, Argentina, India and Africa.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;
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