WTO trade deal offers hope for world’s poor – but we have far to go
2 August 2004
Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon today urged the world's trading powers to deliver quickly on their latest promises to the poor:
"The 11 th hour trade deal struck in Geneva over the weekend is to be warmly welcomed. It is encouraging that the 147 members of the WTO were able to sign up to a framework agreement that has brought the Doha Round negotiations back on track after the disappointment at Cancun ," said the Secretary-General. "A repeat of Cancun would have undermined trade talks for years to come and deprived the international community of its most potent weapon for combating global poverty.
"I see grounds here for cautious optimism," said Mr McKinnon. "It has opened up the opportunity to reach agreement on a Trade Round that delivers the Doha Development Agenda and to create a new set of trade rules that are significantly less unfair on the world's poor.
"We are hearing the industrial countries say that they will eliminate their agricultural subsidies, which amount to $350 bn per year - almost $1 bn per day. These subsidies rob farmers in poor countries of decent livelihoods, and burden consumers in industrial countries with higher taxes and food prices."
But he warned, "The framework agreement is only the end of the beginning, and there is a long way to go before one can be confident that a true Development Round will be delivered. While the offer of an initial down payment of 20 percent is encouraging, we need to have firm commitments and an ambitious timetable for the elimination of agricultural subsidies before there is cause for real celebration".
The promise of progress on cotton was encouraging. "The US offer to take action on its cotton subsidies is a major advance. Here again we need a firm commitment to a timetable that will bring early benefits to some of the poorest countries in Africa .
"Beyond agriculture, more must be done on industrial products, services, trade facilitation and special and differential treatment. This will require the negotiations on the final deal to be infused with a spirit of generosity. We need to move away from a culture of delay and obfuscation and from seeking to extract maximum political advantage from the smallest of concessions."
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- Commonwealth ICT SummitBetty Mould Iddrisu, Director, Legal and Constitutional Affairs
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