South African CSOs demand a development agenda at WTO

On October 26, South African Civil Society Organisations held a caucus to support their government’s position on trade and to make their policy demands.

At a meeting that included the South African GCAP arm, SANGOCO, church organizations, and labour movements, and well-known GCAP personalities Chien Yen and Hellen Wangusa, the CSOs stated their demands on Agriculture, Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Services, and Development. They demanded that their government must ensure that development policy drives trade policy and not vice versa.
We, a consultation of labour, faith-based and civil society organisations examined and discussed the current trade system and the nature and role of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We are convinced that such trade policies and agreements must be challenged to serve people's development rights and needs, and national development aims especially the goals of poverty eradication, job creation and socio-economic justice.
To us, development means the fulfilment of human rights, including labour rights, environmental security and sustainability, the right to develop in a manner that promotes human cooperation and equity. In sum, trade and development are essentially about people, communities and the capacity to provide for their needs.
We note with approval that the South African Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry recently stated at a meeting in Geneva that the current Doha Agenda negotiations are not essentially about market access but development, and must serve the development needs and rights of the majority of the WTO members.
In this context, the most fundamental principles are the rights of all governments and peoples to pursue their own development policies and to create alternative development models according to their own internally agreed aims and means. They should not be obliged to permanently sign away their policy rights.
In the light of these democratic development principles, we have reached the following conclusions about the current WTO negotiations:
Agriculture
Agriculture plays a major role in development and in all the economies of Africa. Market access for big South African agricultural producers into the rich markets of the north is important. However:
· The export dumping of subsidised agricultural products from the highly industrialised countries onto both large and small agricultural producers in Africa must be ended without delay.
· We are also concerned that governments' agricultural policies must also guarantee necessary supports to small and emerging agricultural producers throughout Africa especially women.
· The terms of international agricultural agreements must recognise and enshrine the right of our governments to protect our domestic agriculture as they see fit.
· We are opposed to the current permissive production and trade in Genetically Modified Organisms.
· We call on the South African government to engage in the current negotiations on agriculture in the WTO to guarantee the above.
Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) As this agreement applies to manufacturing, mining, fisheries and forestry which are all crucial sectors of our economies and the bases for higher levels of development:
· We are concerned by the implications of further tariff reductions in all these spheres, as such past and existing cuts have already had damaging effects especially on domestic companies and employment creation and retention.
· Governments need to be able to utilise tariff rates and flexible tariff policies as instruments of industrial promotion and future industrialisation strategies.
· All the proposed "coefficients" or formulae for tariff reductions will result in one or another degree of tariff cuts and bindings which will severely constrain the above.
· We call on the South African government to intervene actively in these negotiations to counter the imposition of further tariff reductions and permanent policy restrictions upon this country and rest of Africa at a time of an unemployment pandemic.
Services
Services are the major sector and provide the sinews for all national economic and social development. Services are also essential to the delivery of vital human rights for our people. Adequate levels of control over financial services are also essential. Therefore:
· Vital social services and infrastructure should not be opened up to "global" service providers subjected to further pressures towards privatisation and the removal of such services from peoples' access.
· The rich countries’ proposed "benchmarking" of commitments is a direct contradiction of the rights of governments to choose where, when or whether to open their service sectors to foreign trading. We endorse the current position of the SA government in opposing this manoeuvre.
· We call on the South African government not to make any offers to open up our services under GATS or to make requests to African governments under binding multilateral rules.
Development
Developing country governments have called for reform, as a top priority, of the anti-development, imbalanced and inequitable agreements within the WTO for many years. Therefore:
· The Doha Agenda cannot be considered to serve "development" unless and until the dozens of outstanding implementation issues are decisively dealt with. Amongst these is the strengthening and operationalisation of Special and Differentiated principles for all developing countries.
· Other crucial development issues currently in Working Groups in the WTO including trade and finance, trade and debt, trade and commodities, trade and technology must also be dealt with as crucial development issues.
· Access to both technology and medicines must be facilitated and rich countries should not promote the commercial interests of their pharmaceutical and other corporations over our essential rights.
The above issues are vitally important to the constituencies we work with. We call on the SA Government to:
· Enhance the tripartite National Economic and Labour Council (NEDLAC) process; broaden engagement with social movements, faith-based organisations and NGOs and extend genuine public consultation with all the people of South Africa. Particularly, direct consultations with sectors and affected vulnerable people in those sectors such as labour, unemployed, women, farm workers and fisher folk.
· Deepen South Africa's cooperation and solidarity with the rest of Africa and contribute to the united resistance of Africa to detrimental policies and divisive and bullying tactics from the rich countries.
· Demand and formally articulate demands for inclusive, transparent and democratic methods of operation at the WTO.
Government must ensure that Development Policy drives Trade Policy and not vice versa.
Representatives who participated in the workshop from the following organisations support the statement:
COSATU: Congress of South African Trade Unions;
NACTU: National Council of Trade Unions;
FEDUSA: Federation for Unions of South Africa
SACC: South Africa Council of Churches;
SACBC: Justice and Peace Department of the Southern African Bishops Conference
EJN: Economic Justice Network
ESSET: Ecumenical Service for Socio Economic Transformation
Denis Hurley Peace Institute
FOCCISA: Fellowship of Christian Councils in South Africa
SANGOCO: South African NGO Coalition;
AIDC: Alternative Information and Development Centre
SEATINI: South Africa (Southern and East African Trade Institute);
IGD: Institute for Global Dialogue
Solidarity Centre
AWEPON