| |
Editorial
8-9/2003
|
|
Economic or development policy?
The talks of the Uruguay Round went on for seven years. Then, in 1994 in Marrakech, the treaty was signed. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was born. During the negotiations, there had been hopes that the liberalisation of world trade would benefit the developing nations, Julius Nyerere had propagated "trade not aid", but when the talks were over it was found that the industrialised countries had mainly got trade barriers removed for their own products, not for those of the developing countries. The OECD calculated that the new agreements would boost incomes by 200 to 300 billion US dollars but would lead to income shortfalls for low income countries. In March 1994, Michael Windfuhr wrote in E+Z: "Least developed countries are the losers."
What free trade used to be – ever since the phrase was coined around the middle of the 19th century – was an instrument for the strong to conquer the markets of the weak, and nothing had changed. All that was left for the poor at the WTO was a promise for the future: the next round would definitely be a "development round". Another seven years on, at Doha in 2001, that promise was enshrined in an official resolution. But what the upcoming Cancún conference in September will bring is already pretty clear: not much progress for the poor. The WTO round, says Peter Fuchs in his article in this issue, has reached the summer of 2003 in a state of deadlock. The developing countries, instead of being helped, find the "development ladder being kicked away"; they are being denied the tools of economic sovereignty that helped threshold countries develop in the past.
Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul steadfastly contends in her article in this issue that the talks "are at least going in the right direction" but she also says what is missing: provision of cheap medicine for the poor countries, dismantling of EU and US farm subsidies, and "all OECD countries finally grant[ing] the poorest countries duty- and quota-free access to their markets". That would indeed be a development round. So will she be making sure that all these demands are met in Cancún? No, unfortunately she is not in a position to do that. She will not be the one sitting at the negotiating table in Cancún; that task will fall to the EU, and the EU won't be represented by the commissioner responsible for development policy but by trade commissioner Pascal Lamy. Ms Wieczorek-Zeul will not even head the German delegation; that role is assigned to the economics minister. And the whole German delegation is going to Cancún only to advise the EU delegation from the 'side table', known as the '133 Committee'. And even beyond that side table, on the mainland (the conference is on the island), will be the NGOs, trying to get their advice heard as best they can – officially, at any rate, no one will ask for it.
A remarkable sentence can be found in Klaus Liebig's article: "As I see it, there are astonishing overlaps in the views of normative economists, NGOs and development policy-makers on what is required to meet developmental needs." But then comes a conclusion that is not easy to understand: "The main obstacle to progress at present is not the fact that the demands for a development round differ; it is the [lack of] political feasibility of implementing it." If there is so much agreement between actors, though, why cannot views be translated into action? The answer is simple: because Klaus Liebig has summarily left out the most important of the actors, who certainly do have "divergent requirements": the trade and economic policy-makers and the international commercial and financial groups that exert influence over them. These the author hides behind the phrase "political feasibility of implementation" as if it was an immutable ‘framework condition’, an anonymous power. The debate we are conducting here in the development community is a curious one: we call on development policy-makers to make better policy, although they (cum grano salis) call for the same as we do. At the same time we formulate the view that development policy cannot be a repair shop for damage done by wrong economic policy. But those responsible for the wrong economic policy we do not see as the persons to whom to address our criticism: the economic and trade policy-makers, sitting at the negotiating table in Cancún. They are the actors missing from Liebig's equation.
If this reality were appreciated, civil society groups in future should not look so much to the development ministry (BMZ) and development policy agencies to furnish adversaries and interlocutors; they would rather find them in the trade and finance ministries, in companies and associations of private business. Some of the groups (such as attac) are already geared up for this, but not enough of them. Yet there are certainly interesting partners to be found in such quarters. There is a new trend in business to take ethical issues more seriously again (and not just in response to the increased detection of business crime). Those who advocate this approach should be made to realise that business ethics means not only honest bookkeeping, but also shouldering responsibility for Third World poverty. Channelled through such people, this view might also percolate through to those who conduct negotiations in international conferences. Apart from that, there is certainly truth in Klaus Liebig's claim that the developing countries could achieve more if they did not allow themselves to be divided, if they were to focus their efforts. So in the world trade dispute, at any rate, the most important thing the BMZ can do is help to empower the developing countries.
|
