Enterprise Issues
With Siaka Momoh
…What lessons for Nigeria?
WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by 148 of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. It has as its goal, rendering help to producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers in the conduct their business. The organization was put in place in answer to the demand of governments of poor countries need for an umpire, when more powerful countries take unfair advantage over those who have less.
Tied to this function of the WTO are other institutions of Northern dominance such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, ITO, GATT, transnational corporations. These institutions, controlled by the industrialized nations, with the likes the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy in the forefront manage the international economy to the disfavour of the South. It is an intricate web in which the Southern countries are perpetually entangled.
You may wonder why in many cases, governments have initiated political reforms such as constitutional changes to further align their national policies and legislations with the neo-liberal corporate agenda of the WTO and the international financial institutions. The answer is not farfetched. The truth is that this Bretton Wood system of Northern powers dominance in the international system is a contrivance involving our power elites, – the compradors, the favoured middlemen, the commissioned agents, who represent the interests of their Northern paymasters. It is an umbilical cord-mother relationship. So the emerging market stories we read about generate wealth which goes to very small segments of the population, and much of which ends up in the North whilst a great majority of the people of the South live in abject poverty.
The summit took a bold step. In collaboration with members of the Asia-Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty, it demanded for the following:
- DEFEND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND RECOGNIZE the freedom and rights of peoples and their governments to set their own policies that will protect their political, social, economic and cultural rights towards attaining food sovereignty and sustainable development;
- STOP BILATERAL AND REGIONAL FREE TRADE talks and reject existing free trade agreements like AFTA, SAFTA, US-Thai FTA, US-Korea FTA, Thai-China FTA, Philippines-China FTA and the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) that result to greater political, social, cultural, and economic deprivation of the common people; environmental degradation; displacement/migration and human rights abuses;
- NO RESUMPTION of the DOHA Round unless and until existing implementation issues have been addressed (e.g. subsidy reduction), the negotiating agenda has been radically altered in favor of the interests and demands of developing and least developing countries’ interests and demands and decision-making processes in the WTO have been reformed/ democratized, i.e. stopping green room negotiation practices and other manipulative /indirect threatening practices of developed countries;
- New trade rules should/shall/must be able to regulate international trade in order to correct inherent asymmetries between the powerful rich countries and their TNCs and the economically weaker developing and least developed countries. Such rules should/shall effectively curb agriculture dumping by developed countries, eliminate their direct and indirect export subsidies and curb overproduction through innovative instruments like supply management; allow developing countries to use import protection like quantitative restrictions to address import surges; allow countries to support their state trading enterprises and marketing and producer cooperatives or associations; and enforce legislations to regulate TNC operations or investments;
- STRENGTHEN farmers’, fishers’ and indigenous peoples’ OWNERSHIP, CONTROL and or ACCESS to their land, water, seeds, forests, and other productive resources through the speedy implementation of a genuine agrarian reform program, recognition of ancestral domain of indigenous peoples, and a land use legislation that prohibits or prevents effective ownership or appropriation of large tracts of lands by TNCs and agri-business firms. PRIORITIZE FOOD SECURITY in land use and stop entry of large- scale commercial plantations and extractive industries;
- REJECT the neo-liberal market model of regional integration in Asia; PROMOTE a Southeast and South Asian social pact/ alliance based on the principles of fair relations, respect of sovereignty and mutual cooperation and that seeks to promote economic justice, the people’s social and economic rights and in particular the recognition of ancestral domain of indigenous peoples, democracy, and the balanced development of agriculture and national industries based on sustainable technologies and practices;
- NO to corporate-led agenda on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). In this regard, governments should RECOGNIZE, SUPPORT and PROTECT the traditional knowledge of farmers and farming communities in relation to plant genetic resources (PGR) for food and agriculture, as well as the basic right of farmers to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and/or propagating materials, equitably participate in sharing benefits arising from the utilization of PGR for food and agriculture, and participate in making decisions on matters related to the conservation, development, access and sustainable use of PGR for food and agriculture;
- STOP the commercialization of genetically modified crops, undo the patent on life forms and encourage public research instead of corporate-led research;
- NO to IMF-WB-ADB and corporate-led agenda on harmonization programs/PRSP and other forms of structural adjustments programs that promote full economic liberalization, privatization and deregulation. No to loan conditionalities;
- RECOGNIZE and PROMOTE women’s role in ensuring food sovereignty, and create gender-responsive policy reforms that will empower women. Stop policies that push women to vulnerable positions;
- STOP extra-judicial killings and other forms of human rights abuses being perpetrated by governments and their military institutions to suppress the struggles of social movements in the region;
- UPHOLD genuine democracy and protect civil and political rights to ensure active people’s participation in national and local decision and policy-making.
Nigeria in particular, and Africa in general, must take a cue from the Asians. What affects Asia affects us. It is no use periodically attending WTO meetings unfocused, unprepared. Only skilled negotiators must attend such meetings, not cousins or workplace loyalists.
First published 2006. Republished courtesy of Archives Siaka-Momoh
