WTO: “Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose”

The sixth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) wrapped up just before Christmas, but the results were anything but a present for Africa. The general consensus on the outcome was that a ‘development package’ failed to obscure losses in the areas of services, agriculture and export subsidies. In this article, Mohau Pheko and Liepollo Lebohang Pheko from the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, argue that Hong Kong will be remembered for creating an anti-development platform for Africa and the African people, especially women.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) evokes a complex game at a casino. Bets are placed, teams are formed and reformed. The G90, G33, G20, NAMA 11 and of course the quads comprising the richest countries of the US, EU, Canada and Japan all line up. Typical of negotiations between rich and poor countries, the rules of the game shift according to the interests of the rich players who make the rules as they go along. In the end the rich industrial nations scheming and reverting to their old bag of tricks like ‘aid for trade’, extract even more concessions from poor African countries who have once again lost the game.

Much time in Hong Kong was spent by rich nations plotting their divide and conquer ‘development’ packages. Yet, even the so-called ‘development’ package was a case of romance without finance, empty, pathetic and premised on the notion of loans to further indebt poor African countries. The least developed countries came under attack as threatening to collapse the summit if they refused their suitors efforts at romancing them by increasing their debt in a take-it-or-leave-it assistance package.

Even the rare boldness of African parliamentarians earlier in the week in insisting that ‘the development concerns in all aspects of negotiations that have been raised by African Members be addressed as an integral part of the negotiations’, was ignored. African trade ministers thought otherwise and endorsed the final text with all its flaws. After six days of acrimonious negotiations, everyone including the unholy trio of the EU, US and Pascal Lamy, the WTO director-general, knows that a multitude of serious problems facing the WTO were papered over to avoid a third collapse and yet another visit to the intensive care unit. The concluded negotiations are a clear indication that the ‘free trade’ system is manifestly hypocritical, inconsistent, and ineffective for African women in particular. The WTO talks in Hong Kong have vividly highlighted these contradictions.

We cannot blame the rich countries alone; they needed to co-opt some countries from the global south to succeed in spinning a deceptive deal. The culprits emerge as the G-20 countries led by countries with large emerging economies such as Brazil, India, China, Pakistan and South Africa. The G-20 headed by Brazil’s Celso Amorin and India’s Kamal Nath have led the developing countries down the garden path in exchange for some market access in agriculture for Brazil and services outsourcing for India. The result of this is that developing countries will be forced to swallow the bitter pill of aggressive services market access. This will force African countries to provide foreign investors with the same rights as local suppliers in areas like water. This is an attack on public services that women depend upon for their families. For South Africa this will work against efforts towards broad-based BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) and women’s economic empowerment with these groups having to compete with foreign investors for tenders in the services sectors.

Through the adoption of a Swiss formula on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), African countries will be forced to undertake drastic cuts in their industrial tariffs. This will potentially lead to the further collapse of local industries, de-industrialisation and massive job losses in mining, fishing and manufacturing and will wipe out women’s home-based industries, displacing local producers.

In the area of agriculture, Africa’s critical interests have been ignored. The end date of 2013 for the elimination of export subsidies, which amounted to three billion euros, looses significance when compared to the damage that African farmers will endure by domestic support measures which amount to 55 billion euros. It is clear that the rich countries, in particular the US and EU, found an escape route on this sticking point. The losers are African women who will be displaced by companies like Monsanto who produce genetically modified seeds and are creating a food security crisis for the African world.

The resistance of countries such as the G90 (mostly developing countries), Venezuela and Cuba were systematically thwarted by immense pressure from the rich nations. What is clear now is that the use of the Doha Development Round was a smokescreen by rich countries to force developing countries to comply with their WTO commitment to open up their markets, even if this was not compatible with national development goals. The ideological imperative of free trade is like a moral prescription of errant religious leaders – do as I say, not as I do. When African countries made demands for special treatment, they were regarded as charity cases by wealthy countries. The rich countries also intimidated developing countries by asserting that they have only two options – meet the challenge of adapting to trade liberalisation or retreat into the dark past of protectionism. This is a false dichotomy. The real dichotomy is the power play between development and the unequal rules of free trade as defined by the rich countries.

Instead of Hong Kong becoming a milestone towards achieving the much-lauded development round, it will be remembered as creating an anti-development platform for Africa and the African people. The economic gains promised when the WTO was launched 11 years ago never materialised and the economic conditions for the majority of African people has deteriorated. It reminds one of that old Billie Holiday song “them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose”.

A recent World Bank study shows that poor nations will be the net looser if the current Doha agenda is continued. It is incredibly cynical - even by WTO standards - to try and label these negotiations as pro-development. Included as net losers are Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and most of the Middle Eastern countries. A careful read of the Hong Kong Ministerial text shows that despite days of hype about development being at the centre of the Doha agenda, in reality, Africa has been mortgaged to subsidise the economic future of rich industrial countries.

* The writers are members of the Secretariat for the Gender & Trade Network in Africa based in Johannesburg. GENTA participated at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.

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