Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970107211058.15693J-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 21:12:43 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: AID GROUPS SAY WORLD'S POOR GET NO BENEFIT FRO (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 01:59:14 GMT From: mailto:VIVIAN@ARIES.EU.INT To: mailto:ARIES-EUROINFO@GEO2.poptel.org.uk Subject: AID GROUPS SAY WORLD'S POOR GET NO BENEFIT FRO
13Dec96 SINGAPORE: AID GROUPS SAY WORLD'S POOR GET NO BENEFIT FROM WTO. By Nick Edwards SINGAPORE, Dec 13 (Reuter) - The cheers of ministers congratulating themselves at striking a deal on global trade on Friday could not drown out the cries of despair of the world's poor, who will get no benefit from the pact, aid agencies said. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) assembled on the sidelines of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Singapore said the world's poor will have gained nothing from the week-long gathering, which ended on Friday.
"There is no evidence yet that poor people have actually benefited from (more) open markets," said Mary Van Lieshout of Oxfam, one of about 150 NGOs attending the Singapore meeting. She told Reuters in an interview: "Oxfam works with 70 countries and we don't know any poor people who have better access to computers," dismissing the impact of the Information Technology Agreement and other trade deals struck by WTO ministers.
Earlier on Friday, European Union Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan said a WTO action plan would help the world's 48 poorest nations improve their capacity to respond to the opportunities offered by the liberalised trading system.
Van Lieshout said that in her experience "poor farmers are competing against heavily subsidised imports that are coming in from the European Union and the U.S."
Christian Aid said in a statement: "Delegations haggled over a host of new issues, but failed to agree the practical steps that would have helped the poorest countries." It added: "The WTO cannot claim to be a global institution when one-tenth of the world's people are falling off the trade map."
A representative of an environmental group working in the Third World, who declined to be identified, said she did not see how the ITA would benefit peasant farmers. "How can it? They've got no access to telecoms," she said. "You try and send an e-mail to a southern country and half the time you can't get through because the electricity lines are down -- it doesn't matter what type of equipment you've got."
NGOs have not formed part of the official WTO programme, but argue that as they represent specific social or interest groups, their input is vital to talks on world trade and development. NGOs complain that the WTO structure is undemocratic, even though it says it reaches decisions by consensus.
At an NGO news conference on the issue, Brennan Van Dyke of the Centre for International Environmental Law said that "Friday the 13th" was "a black day for sustainable development and a blank day for transparency at the WTO". "I don't think there's a group here that's satisfied with what has come out of this ministerial (meeting)," she added.
This view was echoed in a statement issued by the Third World Network, which said the meeting was "hijacked by the major countries to promote their own interests". "The outcome of the (meeting) has unfortunately confirmed the image of the WTO as a "rich men's club", said the statement.
Oxfam's Van Lieshout said most details of WTO deals had been fixed behind closed doors by a group of about 30 national ministers, with the bulk of the 128 member countries left outside. "I think the WTO is a very unhealthy animal. It's not democratic, it's not open and it's not intersted in poverty," she said. (c) Reuters Limited 1996 REUTER NEWS SERVICE