African trade on WTO table
2003-09-08 08:37
Dakar - Africa is set to take its fight for fair trade in agricultural goods - a veritable fight for survival - to this week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Mexico.
Africa is taking a common stand against generous agricultural subsidies in the West, whose products have flooded African markets while shutting out African exports and robbing the world's poorest continent of direly needed foreign exchange.
African heads of state and their trade officials have spent the summer marshalling their forces ahead of the ministerial meetings starting on Wednesday in Cancun, Mexico, where the 146-nation WTO will focus on lowering global trade barriers.
In July, the 53-member African Union lodged a working document with the WTO calling for real progress in trade liberalisation, particularly in agriculture, which the text says has "decisive importance for the development of Africa, (with the potential to) help millions of people to escape poverty."
That text also deplored obstacles in the public health arena, but last week a major stumbling block - access to cheap generic drugs - was removed by a last-minute WTO deal.
Cash crops
African trade ministers, meeting most recently last week, have drafted demands for a level global playing field for the key cash crops: coffee, cotton, sugar and cocoa.
"We are vigorously asking countries that subsidise their cotton sector to give us a chance - otherwise there will be a fight at the WTO conference," a Kenyan official warned.
But Africa's influence in the global debate will depend on its ability to remain united, using the continent's collective weight against the formidable clout of wealthier nations.
In a major test of rich countries' sincerity in pledging to help developing economies, Africa's four main cotton producers will ask for an end to subsidies for Western growers of the crop by 2006.
"We do not ask for charity," Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore said in June. But, he noted, "US subsidies on their own exceed my country's gross national product by 60 percent."
Cotton is key
According to Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, cotton subsidies in the West cause more than a billion dollars in lost sales annually for African growers.
The four states, where cotton is a vital income earner, launched the initiative on behalf of the west and central African regions demanding the phased elimination of subsidies, and compensation for lost export earnings in the interim.
Ndiobo Diene, an adviser to the Senegalese agriculture ministry, said the presence of cotton on the WTO agenda is in itself a sign of progress. "We are beginning to see openings" with EU and US negotiators, he said, even if a resolution to the long-term problem is not expected at the Cancun talks.
But South Africa's chief negotiator to the WTO talks, Xavier Carim, predicted a tough battle against the agricultural lobby in the prosperous West.
"Prospects for a breakthrough on agriculture are not great," Carim said. "The meeting at Cancun is likely to be very difficult."
The 15-nation European Union maintained in June that its cotton subsidies have a limited global impact, noting that EU cotton production amounts to only two percent of the world total.
US cotton growers, for their part, vowed in July to fight any threat to the $3,9-billion they receive each year in state funds.
Although agriculture is only one of several issues set for debate in Cancun, it is likely to dominate.
The issue "has spilled over into other areas. There is clearly a view among many countries that unless we get some movement in agriculture... there is very little basis to consider all the other issues," Carim said last week.
But Ndiogou Fall, the head of the Network of Western African Farmers' Organisations, warned that Africa's best hopes for progress on trade issues could be sabotaged by a lack of unity.
"There has long been a tactic of dividing Africa at WTO negotiations," he said.