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AAPSO Statement towards the UNCTAD XI
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UNCTAD XI STIRS HIGH EXPECTATIONS
When the world trade talks broke down in Cancun on
September 14th, 2003, attention has drawn up
high expectations by the poor
countries of the developing world regarding the next meeting of the
UNCTAD which they see an alternative capable of bringing about issues
they are facing related to trade and development.
Since Cancun has collapsed, the previous Doha
conference, where negotiations were marked by bitter acrinomy
between rich and poor, had formulated designs to reduce trade-distorting
farm support, slash tariffs on farm goods, eliminate agricultural-export
subsidies, cut industrial tariffs, free up trade on services and
negotiate global rules in competition, investment and transparency..The
reaction of the developing countries to such designs was that what
happened in Cancun to opppose the policy of great powers regarding their
self-interests. Such crisis is a consequence of the resounding and
irreversible failure of an economic and political conception related to
neo-liberal globalization.
The world is being integrated with the global
economy within the process of globalization. Increasingly handicaped by
its negative effects which seriously hampered their ability to elaborate
any strategy of development, the poor countries and the developing world
become more and more marginalized. Income gaps within and among
countries remain wide, the number of people living in poverty has
increased. Asymmetries and imbalances in the international economy have
intensified. If we have to examine the strenghts and weaknesses in the
frame of global economy, the striking
reality is that the rich become richer and the poor poorer.
West African cotton farmers are being crushed by
rich countries' subsidies, particularly the 3 billion-plus dollar a year
that the United States lavishes on its 25,000 cotton farmers. Similar
picture is attributed to the European countries' policy of subsidies.
The costs of transporting African exports to foreign markets are five
times higher than the tariffs paid on those goods.
According to the World Bank, complete
liberalization of merchandise trade and elimination of subsidies could
add 1,5 trillion dollar to developing countries' income, and reshaping
the world's trading system and reducing barriers to trade in goods could
reduce the number of poor in developing countries by 300 million by 2015
and boost the global income by as much as 2,8 trillion dollar over the
next ten years.
The problematic remains as unexpectative as the
question on how to reach such targets if, for example, rich countries
pay out 1 billion dollar a day to their farmers in agricultural
subsidies; that is more than 6 times all development assistance going to
poor nations. Six or eight countries control 86% of GNP in the world and
82% of its markets. 80% of products of world consumption are monopolized
by 20% of the world's population. Nothing has been effected to relieve
indebted South countries from the
unbearable servicing of their debt and their own debts ( which amounted
to 2,030 billion US dollars in 1999). UNCTAD had previously stated that
if debts of the poorest countries in the world were written off today,
the lives of 21 million children will be saved. From its part, UNICEF
stressed that the world could meet basic human needs for everyone on
earth by redirecting $70 billion to $80 billion a year, or less than 10%
of the world military spending ( around $700 billion in 2002), to this
purpose. Moreover, 56% of word population live in poverty; 1,2 billion
have an income of less than one dollar per day and 2,8 billion have two
dollars per day.
Against the above backdrop, developing countries as
a whole, and the poorest among them in particular, are facing growing
uncertainties. Formidable challenges remain ahead. These countries have
to address their structural problems which have been exacerbated by
social and human sufferings, dislocation and misleading adjustments
policies. They have to define strategies which will strengthen and
sustain economic growth, improving and reinforcing process of
development seriously affected by the negative impacts of the
globalisation. But its positive aspects also are to be explored aiming
at maintaining characteristics as necessary conditions for sustain
economic growth and developmental process.
eveloping countries continue to starve from lacking
capital and liquidity for their economic
development. The distribution of benefits of development inside and
outside countries is marked by strong imbalances aggravated by the
deep-rooted culture of corruption. Investments have declined due to
economic vulnerability and absence of viable infrastructure of the poor
countries. Access to new technology remains one of the biggest
challenges they have to address in order to narrow the gap between them
and the technologically advanced countries. With this respect, a large
category of people should be initiated with the new technology, thus
allowing them to acquire adequate education to meet the challenge of the
present state of world information technology; to bring them up to the
level of being able to be more involved in the trade and development
system and procedures.
The problematic of globalisation and its
neo-liberal system stands in the
forefront of the daily life of developing world. To elaborate strategies
within this context, the root causes of poverty must be addressed as
priority. The human resources are the engine of development. Together
with their natural resources, they happen to be eroded by brain drain,
pillages, overexploitation, deseases like AIDS; their scarce savings are
deviated to arms procurements or to overpriced drugs to meet their
illness. Under such circumstances, any strategy to meet the challenges
may appear to be " pious vow", leaving the poor countries as a whole to
be pushed into the abyss of an acute human and social polarization.
Within this framework, all countries and mainly the
developing world, are expecting an increasing role of the UNCTAD in
meeting the challenges they are facing in order to ensure the effective
integration of all countries into the international trading system, to
improve supply capabilities, to overcome the debt problem, to generate
adequate financial flow for development, to focus on acute poverty and
growing inequality within and among nations. Prerequisites should be
created for a prosperous, peaceful and secure world. It is imperative to
promote genuine partnership which requires more inclusive, transparent
and participatory institutional arrangements for economic
decision-making so as to ensure that all commitments contained in every
programme of action should be fully implemented.
As an international non-governmental organisation,
the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation-AAPSO-
stresses the need for the developing
countries to strengthen their rank and reinforce their solidarity
movement against the negative effects of policy of neoliberalism,
discriminatory measures aimed at minimizing their ability to play a
decisive role in the decision-making system and trade-related and
development institutions. Their capacity as a driving force to reverse
the lamentable situation needs to be given new impetus, strong
demonstration of political will and determination within the framework
of globalizing world economy. Those are challenges which stirs high
expectations among developing countries in their relation with the
UNCTAD. |
