Disillusion in Southern Africa Ahead of Trade Summit

JOHANNESBURG-- These representatives will include two cotton farmers from Zimbabwe, says Ntando Ndlovu of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the capital, Harare.

"The two farmers will be in Hong Kong and make noise using anything, including the beating of drums," she told a gathering of Southern African activists this week at a conference held in the South African commercial hub of Johannesburg. Ndlovu also urged Mozambique and South Africa to send cotton farmers in support of their Zimbabwean counterparts.

Zimbabwe’s controversial land re-allocation programme has not really affected cotton farmers in the country, said Ndlovu. However, trade rules for cotton have undermined them – and producers further afield.

According to leading British charity Oxfam, "Africa has lost on average 441 million dollars as a result of trade distortions in world cotton prices." Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad and Cameroon are the countries most affected by subsidies which the European Union and the United States are paying their cotton farmers.

Many believe a failure to reform the cotton trade will derail the WTO meeting.

"Cotton could be a big issue to block Hong Kong," Dot Keet of a Cape Town-based NGO, the Alternative Information and Development Centre, told IPS.

But agriculture is not the only source of grievance for Africa in the upcoming trade negotiations. Governments and civic groups across the continent are also concerned about intellectual property rights, and attempts to liberalise the trade in services.

"There is a perception that TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) is ill-conceived. It's not a trade issue – it’s a human rights and knowledge issue," Keet said.

TRIPS, which concerns the manufacture and distribution of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVS) for managing HIV/AIDS – amongst other issues – has been under discussion for some time.

"With a blockage in agriculture – and nearly every other area of the talks – the TRIPS and public health issue appears to have fallen off the agenda and is no longer a priority for rich countries," says Oxfam.

The group accuses the U.S. pharmaceutical lobby of "pushing U.S. negotiators to refuse anything, even if this means leaving millions of poor Africans without access to affordable drugs."

But certain campaigners also blame African governments for the lack of progress on broadening access to ARVs. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected by AIDS, globally.

"African governments have not taken advantage of producing generic drugs as India and Brazil have done," Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, executive director of the Swaziland-based Co-ordinating Assembly of Non-governmental Organisations, told IPS.

The price of ARV treatment has fallen from 10,000 dollars to 150 dollars per year, offering African HIV/AIDS patients a new lease on life, according to Oxfam. But, these prices are still high on a continent where World Bank estimates indicate more than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

African campaigners are also opposed to the WTO's non-agricultural market access (NAMA) discussions.

"NAMA must be taken out of WTO – it’s profoundly immoral. We don't have services to export," Keet said. "NAMA will destroy our economy. With NAMA, economies which have not been industrialised will never industrialise."

There are fears that the sensitive debate over agriculture will be used to prise open the industrial and service sectors of African countries.

"Industrialised nations say they'll reform their agricultural policies, but we must give them improved market access into our agriculture market, our services and industrial sectors," Keet said. "They are using agriculture as a bargaining ploy."

Given the heated debate over these issues, many believe the Hong Kong talks offer little hope.

"If they can't agree on (reducing) subsidies, which African countries have been demanding for years, I doubt there'll ever be a breakthrough in Hong Kong," Vitalice Meja, advocacy director at the Harare-based African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, told IPS.

He believes this holds dire implications for the continent: "We believe trade is the only way that African countries can move out of debt traps. Rich countries should open up their markets and remove high tariffs – and African countries should start trading among themselves."

These words are echoed by Harare-based campaigner Thomas Deve.

"I'm not optimistic that there will be a breakthrough in Hong Kong. The council of ministers didn't come out with a consensus document between July and now. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has failed to garner consensus," he told IPS.

Keet says there are also fears that Chinese authorities will put a damper on the activities of NGOs represented at the WTO summit.

"It's going to be controlled. There will be fewer NGOs in Hong Kong than they were in Cancun," she said. "If there's a low attendance, don't conclude that people have lost interest. That's why we must be there. We must make our voices heard." (The last major round of trade talks took place in the Mexican resort town of Cancun, in 2003.)