Global Civil Society opposes corporate globalization of trade

The Global Civil Society has opposed the corporate globalization of trade for development, food, jobs and sustainable development.

Drawn from 25 different countries, members of the society who staged protests outside the ongoing plenary session at the 10^th Ministerial Conference at the KICC stated that developing countries had demanded changes to the current World Trade Organization (WTO) since the time of its existence.

According to a statement by the civil society, there is need to remove WTO obstacles.

“Everyone knows that Agriculture is the worst since there are unfair rules, the rich can subsidize farming but the poor countries cannot, this must be changed,” read the statement.

The civil society further accused the United States of blocking food security.

“There is need to find a permanent solution on public stock-holding and have special safeguards for developing countries,” read the statement. “The future agenda of the WTO must be development.”

The civil society called for a WTO turnaround on food security, disciplines on cotton trade and a Least Development Countries (LDCs) package which they said is long overdue.

Last week, the Global Civil Society wrote to members of the WTO expressing extreme alarm about the current situation of the negotiations in the organization.

In the letter, the civil society urged the WTO to change existing rules to make the global trading system more compatible with people-centered development, and to forestall efforts by some developed countries to abandon the development agenda and replace it with a set of so-called “new issues” that actually are non-trade issues that would impact deeply on domestic economies and constrain national policy space required for development and public interest.

The civil society cited an instance in which governments from around the world recently endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) negotiated through the United Nations.

The SDGs include key goals such as reducing poverty and inequality; eradicating hunger; and ensuring universal access to essential services such as health care, education, water, and energy.

“In order to achieve these goals, countries must have the policy space to invest in domestic agricultural production to achieve food security and food sovereignty; to regulate the financial sector to ensure financial stability; to scale up public provision of essential services to guarantee education, health, water, and energy access; to harness the power of government procurement to promote small and medium enterprises (SMEs); to utilize tax revenues, including tariffs, strategically to foment sustainable development and the creation of jobs with decent work; and to ensure that foreign investment serves the interests of the national development plan,” read the letter in part.

“However, this policy space is currently constrained by existing WTO rules which the vast majority of WTO members, which are developing countries, have been demanding must be changed, and are further threatened by an effort by a tiny number of developed countries to replace the development mandates with “new issues” designed to further increase transnational corporate profit margins.”

The 10^th WTO Ministerial Conference is currently underway at the KICC, Nairobi.

The conference that is held every two years, will close on Friday 18^th.