Plans to send a large contingent of Kenyan campaigners to the African leg of the World Social Forum (WSF) may be undermined by a lack of funding. Since this year's event was brought to Africa, many Kenyans thought they would take advantage of the proximity to attend. But this hope has waned and the number of those expected to attend has dropped due to inadequate resources, including a prohibitive airfare. It's cheaper to fly to Europe, than to Mali, from Kenya.
* Related Link
See http://sa.indymedia.org/features/wsfmali2006/ for the latest news from Bamako.

Simon Maxwell's recent posting in the ODI weblog contends that the WTO is certainly complicated, and not just because of the profusion of acronyms and the arcane detail of trade policy. The real complexity lies in the way many different issues are brought to the table, with the idea that losses in one area may be offset by gains in another. He argues that there were some obvious examples in Hong Kong - the best known being the EU demanding better access to developing country markets for its manufactures and services in countries like Brazil, as a quid pro quo for reduction in its agricultural subsidies and for further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The Council on Library & Information Resources seeks applications from Public Libraries outside the United States for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Access to Learning Award for 2006. Each year, the programme presents an award of up to $1 million to a public library or similar organisation outside the US with an innovative programme offering the public free access to information technology.

Talks at the recently concluded World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong will not lessen poverty in developing countries because no decisive position was taken to tackle protectionism and dumping. This is according to a statement by the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiation Institute (SEATINI), an African civil society organisation initiative to strengthen Africa's capacity to take a more effective part in the emerging global trading system and to effectively manage the process of globalisation.

March 14, 2006 is the 9th annual International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life! This is a time to join together in solidarity to protest destructive river development and celebrate successes over the last year. It is also a time to fight for social justice and the rights of communities to have a say in decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods. We invite you to participate in this year’s Day of Action by planning an action or event to celebrate rivers, water and life. Take a stand this March 14th for healthy rivers and thriving communities! Organize an action, a celebration, or a community fair. Choose whatever topic and form of action you like, and focus on whatever works within your own context. Just get involved and get active.

China is willing to negotiate Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with African countries and African regional organizations when conditions are ripe, according to China’s African Policy Paper issued Thursday (January 12) in Beijing. The paper, the first of its kind issued by the Chinese government, said the Chinese government encourages and supports Chinese enterprises’ investment and business in Africa. African countries are welcome to make investment in China and the two sides should work together to create a favorable environment for investment and cooperation and protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors from both sides, the paper said.

The United Nations General Assembly January 11 resumed closed-door talks on setting up the new UN Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights, as called for by leaders meeting at the 2005 World Summit last September. The creation of a new Council is widely seen as an opportunity to open a new chapter in the UN’s human rights work, which, though comprehensive and respected, suffered from the tainted reputation of the Commission.

Based on a review from 45 major economies, a report is released naming the Top 10 Mobile Multimedia Nations. The report looks at the relationship between mobile multimedia and the factors that may impact the propensity to use it and includes several statistical tables that feature the latest available indicators on the mobile sector, according to PR Newswire.

The US Population Reference Bureau has produced a CDROM, in English and French, featuring a collection of data and research on female genital mutilation/cutting from a variety of sources. Funded by USAID, this resource is a direct response to existing information gaps. Single copies of the CDROM are available free of charge.

The dgForum online discussion tool will soon be available on dgIndigenous Issues. What questions would the dgIndigenous community like to discuss? Please send your ideas to [email protected].

Zimbabwe's Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says the Harare government is considering enacting new legislation to force the country's banks to finance black villagers resettled on land seized from whites. Speaking to ZimOnline at the weekend, Made accused commercial banks of ganging up to sabotage President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms by refusing to advance loans to blacks allocated land by the government.

The Wellcome Trust has launched a final call for proposals for their global grant scheme, Livestock for Life. Awards ranging from £20,000 to £150,000, are available. Livestock for Life aims to strengthen links between livestock keepers, practitioners, researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders working in the field of international health.

There is a feeling that the growing standardisation of aid policies and procedures among northern donors, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), is not contributing to building strong local civil society organisations, enhancing local ownership, or contributing to strong partnerships.

As development thinking shifts from 'beneficiary' to 'citizen participation' and from 'participation as a means' to 'participation as a right', are international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) changing the way they monitor and evaluate their work? Or are they still failing to create systems which demonstrate the outcomes of their interventions and encourage local voices?

This fourth edition of the EFA Global Monitoring Report focuses on literacy, says this posting on the web site of the Development Gateway. The report measures the world's progress towards achieving the six Education For All goals, and especially the neglected one of universal literacy. It stresses the urgency of devoting increased policy attention and resources to literacy, emphasising the profound benefits it confers on individuals, communities and nations. The main argument of the report is that literacy is essential not only for achieving Education For All, but also for reaching the overarching goal of reducing human poverty.

This paper from the Eldis web site considers approaches towards improving the predictability of aid to low income countries, with a special focus on budget support. The authors note that in order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, the donor community is increasing aid flows while pushing for more coordination and tighter performance-based selectivity. The document warns that these factors may increase the unpredictability of aid, from current levels, which are already high enough to impose significant costs. The authors recommend that to improve predictability, donors must extend their funding horizons.

Forced Migration Online is pleased to announce the launch of an extensive new resource, a Research Guide on Internal displacement. This Research Guide provides an introduction to some of the main debates regarding internal displacement. It summarizes the challenge of internal displacement at a policy level and also addresses its social consequences. It explores the experiences of physical dislocation, separation from everyday practices and familiar environments, social disruption and material dispossession. The Research Guide provides links to many resources online, lists many reference materials, and is launched in conjunction with Forced Migration Review 24 – IDP Supplement.

This report presents ten studies carried out in Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Georgia, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Sierra Leone and Zambia. The studies assess the form and extent of corruption at schools, universities and in education administration and provides practical examples of how civil society can help curb corrupt practice to ensure that children get quality education.

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.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

“Who will stand up for the poor?” asks Percy F. Makombe from the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information Negotiations Institute in the light of the recently concluded World Trade Organisation meeting held in Hong Kong 13-18 December. Makombe writes: “By agreeing to the Hong Kong ministerial text, developing countries are accepting short term and insignificant gains in agriculture for the serious loss of the right to develop policy space and options.”

It was the English poet John Milton who made the famous statement that "They who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness." Milton was of course speaking of other times. Yet after monitoring six days of World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade talks in Hong Kong between December 13-18, one could be forgiven for thinking that Milton was referring to these times.

After a week of haggling, 149 WTO countries gave their thumbs up to a statement that is supposed to keep alive the prospect of a global trade deal. There seemed to be a touch of inappropriateness when Chair, John Tsang, Hong Kong's Commerce Secretary, banged his gavel and authoritatively declared "It is so decided". Perhaps the appropriate words would have been “It is so ordered!” This way any pretensions to a consultative decision making process would be done away with.

According to the declaration, rich countries are supposed to end their export subsidies by 2013 and also speed up cuts to other forms of government farm support. On cotton, rich countries must phase out export subsidies next year (2006) but there is no agreement on subsidies for US farmers. Lowest Developing Countries (LDC) have also been made to believe that the “deal” is good for them as rich countries will allow duty and quota-free access for 97% of products from LDCs from 2008. These countries will be given special allowances for meeting market-opening requirements. The WTO has set April 30 as the deadline for the completion of negotiations in agriculture and industrial goods. Despite opposition by developing countries to negotiations on liberalisation of trade in services, the text commits them to begin negotiations in 2006.

There is very little from the ministerial declaration to suggest that the world’s richest countries are committed to helping developing countries. The declaration represents nothing more than an offering of mere crumbs at the table. In the area of agriculture, developing countries are urged to open their markets ostensibly so that free trade can take place, but in reality to give a place for rich countries to dump heavily subsidised agricultural products. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cotton issue for instance. An Oxfam report reveals that the US government subsidised its 25 000 cotton farmers to the tune of US$4.2 billion in 2004. This places the US farmers at an unfair advantage and enables them to take a 40% chunk of the global market. This has serious repercussions for millions of cotton farmers in Africa especially in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali whose countries depend on cotton for almost half their exports. It borders on obscenity for the US government to give that kind of support to agribusiness and then preach the doctrine of free and fair trade to African farmers.

The promise by the declaration to eliminate cotton export subsidies in 2006 has been touted as an example that rich nations are willing to lose something in these negotiations. Yet to argue that way is an exercise in deception for two reasons. First, the European Union does not have cotton export subsidies. Second the US cannot claim to be doing anyone a favour by eliminating them because it is required to do so anyway to comply with a WTO panel ruling.

The deal that allows Least-Developed Countries to get duty-free, quota free access for 97% of exports from 2008 is as meaningless as it is worthless. This is not least because all the LDCs account for less than one per cent of world trade. Allowing unrestricted entry of their products in developing and developed countries’ markets is therefore inconsequential. This is more so given the fact that Japan for instance will not permit the entry of sugar, rice and fishery products into its market. EU farmers strongly lobby their governments not to permit the entry of beef and sugar in their countries. US considers textiles from Bangladeshi and Cambodia to be competitive and will therefore not grant duty and quota-free access to it. So we have a farcical situation where Cambodia can be granted duty and quota free access to the US market if it is selling Boeing 707 aeroplanes but not textiles. Where does Cambodia begin to get the money to manufacture a Boeing 707?

On Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) the text proposes the cutting of tariffs using the so-called ‘Swiss Formula’. While it is clear that this is the ‘preferred’ formula, what is not clear is what the coefficients for developed and developing countries will be like. Whatever the coefficient, there is no doubt that the formula will radically reduce tariffs thus exposing vulnerable industries in developing countries to aggressive and unfair competition.

Developing countries have agreed on the Swiss formula but have got nothing in terms of policy flexibility in the NAMA negotiations. Since developing countries have much higher tariffs than the rich countries, this means much larger tariff cuts by developing countries in terms of percentage points. Yet an ideal situation is one where developing countries with a weak and vulnerable industrial base should have the policy freedom and flexibility to choose their own commitments regarding which sector and at what rate of reduction their commitments are to be. The argument that competition from cheaper imports will induce local firms to be more competitive flies in the face of facts. The fact of the matter is that the developed countries of today industrialized under high tariff and import protection, and those countries that liberalized too fast suffered closure of local industries and job losses.

While there has been progress on negotiations on issues like agriculture and non-agricultural market access which are on the priority list of developed nations, there has been little or no movement on issues like the Special & Differential Treatment (S&D) which are of importance to developing countries. Countries are different and the same rules should not apply to all countries because they are in different stages of development. It is not fair to require countries to make concessions and undertake commitments that are inconsistent with their development. Only a satisfactory resolution of S&D treatment will contribute to the redress of the present imbalances in the multilateral trading system.

By agreeing to the Hong Kong ministerial text, developing countries are accepting short term and insignificant gains in agriculture for the serious loss of the right to develop policy space and options. The 2013 deadline for the elimination of export subsidies is not even a deadline. Further down, the text is very clear that the deadline “will be confirmed upon completion of the modalities…” This looks more like an exit strategy for the developed nations; it gives them space to explain why they have not met their commitments. In return for this shaky commitment, developing countries will be asked to open up some more. They will be asked not to protect their infant industries. Further down, they will be asked to privatise basic services like water and health leaving their citizens exposed to the vagaries of the market. All this for what?

Who will stand up for the poor? To question those who want to auction our lives is not only our right it is our duty. To challenge those who seek to commodify our lives is not only a necessity, it is our responsibility. It’s certainly not easy to fight big business and capital, but as has often been said, “Every journey begins with a single step.”

* Percy F. Makombe is an editorial board member of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information Negotiations Institute.

* Please send comments to