KNOWLEDGE, POWER, BANKING
Raj Patel*

"Knowledge is power" isn't just a slogan tossed around by polo-necked post-modernists. It's a maxim by which international capital lives. Want proof? Later this month, the World Bank will launch a prototype website that demonstrates amply their aim to control the Third world by controlling what is, and is not, officially thinkable.

This has important real-world consequences. This is no ordinary website. More than your average newspaper or magazine, the World Bank's talk matters. As lead lender in most donor consortia in developing countries, the Bank shapes the flow of vast sums of money - not only the Bank's own but also those of Northern taxpayers' aid programmes. The Bank has managed to achieve this pre-eminence by positioning itself as the institution with the most experience, professionalism, and knowledge, in international development. It has achieved this position through a multimillion dollar drive to corner the market in 'research' in developing countries. Through successive iterations of knowledge production, by bankrolling rafts of consultants on 'missions' to developing countries , and assisted by the atrophy of national development budgets, the World Bank finds itself primus inter pares in the international capitalist development community. It's a position where its money talks and its talk monies.

The World Bank Development Gateway, http://developmentgateway.org is the newest weapon in its arsenal. It is a multimillion dollar web portal that aims, in the words of its draft business plan, to "solve development problems by sharing high-quality information from local and national sources, tailored to users' needs by topic and community". To be fair, some problems *will* be solved by the site. In the world of international development, it is often hard to find out what different aid agencies are up to. The site will contain a database about aid agency projects, which will be useful to those with web access in both developing and developed countries who want to be able to monitor the often controversial activities of these agencies. There'll also be a mini Amazon.com-style bookstore for those unable to order their books through a locally owned store, and news provided by that fund of grassroots development information, the Financial Times.

If this were all the Bank intended to do, the site would be a marginally useful addition to the current rash of development-information portals on the web. It gets worse, though. The centerpiece of the site is an edited section of 140 policy forums, monitored by 'topic guides'. These digital sherpas are tasked with plucking the best morsels of information on the web in their specialist areas, following murkily defined 'quality' criteria, and presenting them to the general public. It is this attempt to provide a strictly policed one-stop shop for 'knowledge for development' that has caused a great deal of consternation among independent researchers and activists.

The problem starts with the assumptions of the project. In a critical note to the project, Lyla Mehta, a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex notes, "Knowledge for development' is defined at the very outset as something that the poor lack". "This not only legitimises bureaucratic intervention into new areas concerning the lives of the poor [but t]he standing of poor people's knowledge is diminished and is made out to be something inferior and not universally applicable."

A Bit of History

The idea of an institution controlling knowledge in order to legitimize a political agenda and subjugate the poor isn't new. Here's a quote from Bank President James Wolfensohn's speech at the Bank's 1996 Annual meeting. "Knowledge is like light. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty - unnecessarily (…) Poor countries -and poor people- differ from rich ones not only because they have less capital but because they have less knowledge."

"The parallels with the first chapter of St John's Gospel are striking", says Mehta. This is a particularly appropriate comparison. In its near monopoly control over knowledge, money and governance, the Bank's Gospel in developing countries has its precedent in the Christian Church's work in Early Modern Europe and colonialism. The dispatch of a battalion of consultants from head office isn't called 'a mission' for nothing. The idea of an 'information society' isn't as new as its more breathless adherents would like to think; the use of 'information' to subjugate and control has a long and bloody history.

Technology has changed, though, and with the move from pulpit to net, so have the tactics of knowledge management. An unnamed WTO official said, in the wake of the Battle of Seattle, that the confrontation between capitalism and dissent was lost not in the streets or in the conference center, but on the internet. And it was at the Seattle Ministerial that James Wolfensohn, the Bank president, is rumoured to have met Bill Gates, and when the idea of a 'development knowledge portal' was first mooted.

The truth of this doesn't matter much - the parallels between the two are instructive. At the time of writing, Microsoft has been found guilty of monopoly practices. It is a charge that can, with some accuracy, be leveled against the Bank's own behaviour. The market in knowledge on the internet isn't a free one, even if it costs relatively little for certain Northern consumers to access it. Suppliers cannot enter as they wish, and some providers - notably the Bank - have a stranglehold on the market.

Some argue that if the Bank's site is no good, people simply won't use it. Consumers of knowledge on the net aren't however, perfectly informed. The Bank spends a great deal of time and money investing in giving its products the look and feel of impartiality, and it's hard to distinguish the genuinely useful from the morass of verbiage. To muddy this further, top academics are contracted to manufacture knowledge under the Bank's brand. The products of this process are different, however, from the materials that flow from conventional academic journals - only the smallest fraction of the Bank's output is peer reviewed. Despite this major flaw, the Bank's branding has been remarkably successful - it has over the last twenty years become the most widely cited authority on development issues.

Alex Wilks of the Bretton Woods Project argues that this impartiality is disingenuous. "The World Bank has never been a neutral knowledge broker, it has always been influenced by narrow economic ideologies and the views of the powerful governments which run it. Its new site appears to be balanced and independent, but its structure, editorial approach and governance are again weighted against those who challenge orthodox views. The Gateway will give the World Bank and its allies the opportunities to further consolidate their approaches and may damage the continued growth of a genuinely pluralistic set of websites on poverty issues."

A Bit of Proof

As with all exercises in thought control, the veneer of objectivity is vital for the Development Gateway. This is promulgated both in its structure and content. Structurally, the gateway will be guided by a Foundation independent of the Bank. This is true. Technically. But consider that very few concrete details have been released about the constitution of the Board of this Foundation. "The only sure way to get on is to chip in 5 million dollars to become a founding member," says Wilks. "Rumours are that the Board will comprise the Bank, two private sector companies, four or more governments and a couple of civil society representatives, though it remains unclear who, how many, or on what basis these people will 'represent'". In any case, when the key structuring and operating decisions have already been taken by the Bank, and when the Bank will have a seat on the board of this body, we may not be unreasonable in thinking that this body will have all the freedom of clockwork.

The Bank also purports to democratize the process of knowledge generation and dissemination through an interactive ranking system. Users are invited to rate just how helpful or useless a particular piece of information is, and these votes are collated online for future users. This is not, sadly, what democracy looks like. It's dot.communitarianism masquerading as universalism.

The technology hides a digitally, and hence socially and economically, gated community in which the voices of those privileged enough to have internet access are amplified - less than 30% of users of the Bank's existing site come from outside the United States - while dissenters and the poor are muffled. "In the end it will just give more prominence to those who are already having no trouble making their voices heard", says Wilks.

A Bit of Trouble

Even though the site hasn't been launched yet, it is already in trouble. There have, for instance, already been exclusions. Clicking on the feedback section of the site, and looking for Vanessa von Struensee's posts is instructive. Hers is a long correspondence with the editors of one of the sections, in which her attempts to post a report on truth commissions were rebuffed. If this is the response to a professor of law asking for a perfectly reasonable contribution to be posted before the site is officially launched, there are grounds to worry about centralisation and control of knowledge.

The creation of the development gateway hasn't even followed the Bank's standard operations guidelines. In an appeal to the Bank's Fraud and Corruption Investigation Department, two Uruguayan activists have charged the Bank with misuse and gross waste of funds, and "even fraud and misleading public opinion". They note that no-one but the Bank's highest echelons wants the site - no beneficiaries have asked for it, and in African and Latin American consultations, civil society rejected the gateway, and raised criticisms that have been cosmetically brushed aside. Spending $7 million dollars of money intended to help the poor on a public relations project is rude fraud indeed.

This is why a gamut of scholars, researchers, teachers, politicians and other 'knowledge workers' have pledged to avoid using the gateway. The rejection of the gateway has been compared by some scholars to the 1933 Buecherverbrennung in Nazi Germany in which unacceptable, non-Ayran books were torched. The comparison is unfortunate, and showing why it is important. Refusing to confer legitimacy on the Bank's project through non-participation is an act of resistance to totalitarianism, not complicity with it. Susan George, a writer and activist in Europe, was one of the first to sign on to the recent declaration boycotting the World Bank's initiative. Her objection to the Bank's initiative is this: "[i]f you can occupy the mind you don't have to worry about the rest, people will not even be able to ask the right questions much less provide the answers. The systematisation of knowledge according to the criteria of the dominant class is a constant in the history of the struggle for change." If anyone is guilty of anti-intellectualism and close-mindedness, it is the Bank, not the protesters.

The Bank's site is aimed at knowledge workers; as such workers we have far more power than we think we do. Rejecting the site meets the Bank on its own terms, refusing to cooperate with candied enticements to huddle under its Big Tent, Republican-style. There are alternatives out there, and given the limited time and resources available to us, we're better off following a process of 'constructive disengagement', to use a phrase from the Southern African Peoples' Solidarity Network (SAPSN).

This declaration is not, in other words, the cyber-equivalent of book burning. It is a vote of confidence in alternatives. There are already fine portals for 'development knowledge', if you're looking on the net. Znet, A-infos, and the Indymedia collective are among the most prominent English language ones. It is our responsibility to use them. At a time when the forces of international capital want to smother thinking about different ways to live, fighting for the space to think about alternatives is a revolutionary act.

For more information on the Development Gateway, including the anti-corruption appeal, visit http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/knowledgebank/

To sign on to the Declaration, visit
http://voiceoftheturtle.org/gateway or send an email to: gateway@voiceoftheturtle.org with your name and organization in the subject line (though signing the declaration is done in an individual capacity and in no way implied any institutional endorsement).

[*Raj Patel, a former researcher for the World Bank, is a co-editor of The Voice of the Turtle (www.voiceoftheturtle.org). He is based in Zimbabwe, where he is currently completing his research on gender and resistance to economic liberalisation, for a doctorate at Cornell University's Department of Rural Sociology.]

PROPOSAL FOR A 'DEVELOPMENT BOX' IN THE WTO AGREEMENT ON AGRICULTURE
Duncan Green, CAFOD and Shishir Priyadarshi, South Centre, June 2001

1. Introduction
There is widespread dissatisfaction among developing countries with the workings of the AoA to date. Developing countries have, inter-alia, expressed these concerns both in the Analysis and Information Exchange (AIE) process at the WTO as well as in submissions made by them in the first phase of the ongoing agriculture negotiations. In particular, access to developed country markets has not been achieved to the promised extent, and many developing counties have experienced import surges following trade liberalisation. Moreover, the existing distortions in world trade have in many cases impacted negatively on the livelihoods of low-income and resource-poor farmers and on the already precarious food security condition of many developing countries.

Addressing this issue therefore involves changes at both developed and developing country levels. Developing countries need increased flexibility through enhanced S&D, to enable them to strengthen domestic production and defend the livelihoods of poor farmers. For their part, developed countries must reduce their excessive levels of agricultural support which are distorting world markets and damaging developing country farmers. They must also increase market access for developing country exports, particularly those involving a significant number of small producers. Such steps would have to address effectively the problems arising from persistent developed country protectionism, such as tariff peaks, tariff escalation, and trade harassment through abuse of SPS and anti-dumping rules.

Developed countries should also improve market access for small 'single' commodity exporters who are net staple food importing countries, and otherwise find ways to compensate for the 'preference erosion' threatening developing country members of existing preferential trade agreements.

Such steps would be an appropriate response to Article 20 of the AoA which establishes that the ongoing negotiations should take into account 'non-trade concerns, special and differential treatment to developing country Members, and the objective to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system'.

This paper concentrates on the developing country end of this twin track approach, by proposing a range of enhanced S&D measures in a 'Development Box' to be incorporated into the AoA. Full version of paper available at http://www.cafod.org.uk/policy/devbox.htm

Shortcomings in the current AoA
The experience of implementing the AoA has shown there to be a number of basic shortcomings in the provisions, including:

Inequity in the way the AoA was designed and applied
No recognition of the fundamental differences between the role of agriculture in developing and developed economies .
Does not recognise the pressing need to increase food production in developing countries
No exemptions for food security purposes
No possibility of correcting anomalies in the tariff structure, particularly related to sensitive staple crops.
Insufficient recognition of the social impact of import surges
Non-implementation of the Marrakech Decision

The Development Box: Key Issues and Debates
In devising a framework and specific proposals for a Development Box, there are several key issues which need to be addressed:

Key Issue 1. Should the Development Box work at a national or a sub-national level? In particular, should it aim to enable governments to give special support to Low Income/Resource Poor (LI/RP) farmers?
The debate in the WTO has at times glossed over the somewhat different concerns of developed and developing countries with both sets of players trying to squeeze in their specific problems under the general guise of 'food security'. Still less has the discussion focused on the specific problems of LI/RP farmers who often bear the brunt of the vulnerability of the agricultural sector.

LI/RP farmers are critically important to the economies of many developing countries, and yet they are frequently among the poorest groups in society. In many East and Southern African countries, for example, small-scale, often subsistence, farmers account for as much as 85 per cent of domestic food production, and for the majority of the rural poor. Small-scale farmers usually live in marginal and degraded lands, and lack access to assets such as production inputs, credit, technology and infrastructure, which inhibits their productivity and capacity to establish reasonable terms of trade. Such farmers have only small plots of land, and use human labour as the main source of power and transport. Female smallholders are particularly disadvantaged as they often face discrimination in access to land, credit and social services, as well as having less control over income from staple and cash crop production.

Historically, LI/RP farmers have been at the heart of many successful development experiences. For example, this 'farmer road to development' is one of the reasons why the US, with its initial equitable pattern of smallholder agriculture, developed more rapidly and evenly than Latin America, with its highly skewed pattern of land distribution. More recently, the post-war experiences of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan demonstrate the importance of smallholder agriculture in launching countries along equitable development paths.

This paper, while looking at the broad problem of food security and rural livelihoods in developing countries, therefore explores the possibilities of ensuring that the AoA helps (or at least does not hinder) governments in supporting the weakest and most vulnerable players. Wherever possible, it suggests rules and provisions that target their concerns, and strengthen their productivity and livelihoods. It is important to try and separate out and give priority to the specific needs of LI/RP farmers, distinguishing them from those of large farmers or agribusiness interests which frequently dominate the agenda of global trade negotiations.

Key Issue 2. Significance of domestic food production (rather than reliance on food imports) for development and food security
The rapid rise of developing country dependence on food imports is a cause for concern. At some $458bn, the value of food trade was over five times greater in 1997 than 20 years earlier. Developing countries accounted for some 37% of total food imports in 1997, up from 28% in 1974. However over the same period, their share of total food exports had risen only to about 34% from 30%. As a result, their trade balance in food commodities has turned negative. Their net trade deficit in food came to $13bn in 1997.

According to the FAO, developing countries over the last 30 years have seen their trade deficit in cereals rise from 17m tonnes to 104m tonnes. The FAO sees this as a 'precarious trend', since historically both developed and developing countries have achieved food security through enhanced domestic food production.

Projections by the FAO and the International Food Policy Research Institute show that over the next 20 years, almost all of the increase in world food demand will take place in developing countries. For poverty reduction and developmental reasons, it is vital that domestic producers, especially LI/RP farmers, supply as large a share as possible of this increased demand.

While many small developing economies may not reasonably be able to achieve total self sufficiency, even if that was desirable, there are compelling economic and political reasons for seeking to maximise the contribution of domestic food production to the overall domestic requirements of developing countries, including the following:

· Foreign exchange constraints facing many countries are exacerbated by the increasing import bill for foodstuffs. Although in theory a shift out of food production into export agriculture could generate the foreign exchange needed, in practice a combination of supply side constraints in developing countries, and subsidies and trade barriers in developed economies, have often prevented this from happening. Given the priority of feeding the population, other imports such as capital goods suffer because of conflicting demands on scarce foreign exchange reserves, thereby further endangering long-term growth prospects.

· LI/RP farmers in particular often face obstacles in shifting from food to cash crop production in response to trade liberalisation. These obstacles include low literacy levels and limited infrastructural facilities, credit and technical support, and the high degree of quality control involved in entering the export market. They therefore risk being hit by lower prices due to food import surges, without having the necessary capacity to access global markets for their exports.

· Rural employment: food production is often more labour intensive than export agriculture, and therefore plays a central part in rural development and poverty alleviation efforts in the countryside.

· Food aid has often been accompanied by conditionalities - that is there is often a political price to pay for food aid. Moreover, food aid suffers from the perverse effect that the quantities on offer are often inversely related to world prices. When prices are low, Northern governments often support their own farmers by increasing their food aid purchases, but periods of low world prices are the times when developing countries are least in need of food aid. Disciplines and best practice need to be improved to deal with these failings.

· Studies have shown that if major consumers such as India were to enter the international market to procure even a small percentage of their food requirements, it could have a major impact on world prices, thereby negatively affecting the import bills of other NFIDCs.

· Global food sufficiency, which many will argue is a solution to this problem, has in the past not been able to address the individual food security concerns of most developing countries. Surpluses in one part of a country have not been able to quickly overcome or ameliorate shortages in another part of the same country, let along shortages in other countries. Markets require purchasing power, lacked by many people in developing countries.

· Countries may wish to protect the production of culturally significant foodstuffs not otherwise available on the world market.

· Domestic production can contribute to maintaining biodiversity by making a unique gene pool of locally adapted crops available to local farmers.

Key Issue 3: Impact of Proposed Development Box on Poverty
As Amartya Sen makes clear, poverty and food insecurity can spring from a range of different factors besides the ability to grow food. Most rural families are at the same time producers, consumers, sellers of labour and recipients of government transfers. There is understandable concern that the Development Box, by giving special treatment to small farmers, may harm other consumers, such as the urban poor, through higher food prices or taxes. However, in practice, liberalisation has not always led to a better deal for consumers. One literature review of case study material on the impact of trade liberalisation finds that

A recurrent theme in Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Mali, Madagascar, Senegal and Nicaragua was the lack of government capacity in deregulating the economy in an efficient and effective manner. In almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, as a result of imperfect market conditions, domestic prices (both for producers and consumers) do not reflect trade liberalisation gains. In Burkina Faso , urban traders have kept control of the sector to a large extent. This is also the case in Cameroon and Mali.

Some authors have argued that much more attention needs to be paid to the role of other actors in the food chain, notably food processors and traders. This could lead to proposals for introducing competition rules into the AoA. However, the authors have not been able to address these issues in the time available.

There are a number of further points to make here:

· While trying to ensure governments have the flexibility to protect and promote the livelihoods of small farmers, it is important to note that a development box does not prescribe government policies.
· Under Annex 2, Government feeding programmes, regional assistance schemes and food security buffer stocks are exempt from domestic support reductions. It is important that governments maintain and extend this flexibility through the AoA negotiations, in order to allow them to keep prices down and compensate for any price rises (or slower price falls) due to a more development-sensitive approach to liberalisation.
· If governments opt for tariff increases, or slower rates of tariff reduction, they will have more revenue to spend on targetted safety net programmes.
· While the tariff measures proposed under the development box may cause prices to rise, or fall less slowly, other development box measures such as exempting government spending on marketing support and transportation should lead to lower prices for consumers.
· SSG measures under the AoA are a response to sudden price drops due to a surge in imports, and are structured so as to partially offset the price fall, but not to turn it into a price rise. Thus the Development Box proposal to extend the right to introduce SSG measures to all developing countries should not lead to price rises.
· Cheap food achieved in the short term at the expense of local farmers may rebound negatively in the longer term through greater import dependence.

Key Issue 4: Are general or specific proposals in the best interests of developing countries?
There are arguments for and against moving from the general text currently in the AoA towards the kind of detailed proposal for a Development Box sketched out in this paper. The current AoA makes vague reference to both food security and provides some limited forms of S&D for developing countries. Vagueness may provide developing country governments with more room to interpret the AoA in their development interests. Moreover, given the nature of the WTO, in moving from that to a more detailed proposal, developing countries will have to negotiate and make concessions in other areas.

However, the current negotiations are likely to lead to tighter limits on tariffs and domestic support, increasing the impact of the AoA, both positive and negative, on food security. There is therefore a clear case for ringfencing food security concerns more explicitly in the agreement. Moreover, the creation of a Development Box sends a clear signal to all WTO members that food security and development concerns are a priority, and will encourage developing country governments to put these interests first in their trade policies. This paper therefore opts for the course of detailed proposals.

6. The Development Box: A Proposal
As a solution to some of the problems associated with food security a group of developing countries have in the ongoing negotiations already suggested the creation of a 'development box', the provisions of which would be geared in a manner so as to provide developing countries the requisite flexibility to enhance domestic production for domestic consumption and to take such other measures which may be necessary to protect the livelihood of their farmers. This proposal builds on that initial work.

Given the widespread confusion over terms such as food security and S&D, it is important to clearly define what are the objectives being sought by a 'development box'. Broadly, the endeavour is to suggest specific provisions which are at best minimally trade distorting and yet are able to provide developing countries with the flexibility they need to pursue policies aimed at reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development. This leads to the following broad parameters:

1. This proposal applies to developing countries only. Given the fundamental differences in the kinds of agriculture practiced and the role agriculture plays in developing and developed countries, there is a clear case for devising a development box whose provisions would apply only to developing countries. Arguments about multifunctionality may have merit, but they should not be confused or conflated with the concerns and specific problems of the rural poor of developing countries. For this reason, the proposal is termed a 'development box' rather than a 'food security box' which can be seen as including developed country interests.

2. Within developing countries, the main focus is on low income and resource poor (LI/RP) farmers. The key to poverty reduction and rural development is to defend and enhance the livelihoods of the world's LI/RP farmers. Although, in the actual implementation of any scheme, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish clearly between large and LI/RP farmers, a market access focus on those crops produced by the latter and greater flexibility for domestic support to LI/RP farmers would both build on existing articles in the AoA (article 6.2) and would offer a way forward in ensuring that the S&D provisions of the AoA benefit the poor. This approach should also allay any fears that S&D provisions might be misused to further the interests of agribusiness lobbies in developing countries, even though this has rarely been the case in the past.

While distinguishing between different kinds of producers in this way may carry an administrative burden, it is important to allow governments the flexibility within the WTO rules to weigh up for themselves the costs and benefits of supporting small producers as part of their national poverty reduction strategies.

3. The main focus is food security. This proposal focuses on what it terms 'food security crops', which it defines as 'crops which are either staple foods in the country concerned, or other crops which are the main sources of livelihood for low-income and resource-poor (LI/RP) farmers.'

Based on these overall objectives, the development box aims to:

(i) protect LI/RP farmers, who are often engaged in subsistence farming of food security crops, from surges of cheap or unfairly subsidised imports

(ii) protect and enhance the efficiency of developing countries' domestic food production capacity, particularly in key staples

(iii) provide and sustain existing employment and livelihoods opportunities of the rural poor

(iv) promote improved in-country movement of surplus production

Translating the above ideas into effective and implementable 'development box' provisions requires specific instruments designed to address particular problems. These must be built into the new agreement as instruments designed to address the various aspects of the food security concerns of developing countries, under the three pillars of the negotiations. Such instruments are outlined below:

Development Box Instruments
Market Access
1. In developing countries, the basic food security crops should be exempt from reduction commitments. Such an approach could be implemented through what is commonly termed a 'negative list' approach, whereby developing countries would be allowed to nominate a list of staple food security crops for exclusion from the reduction commitments. The precedent for distinguishing between staples and other crops is already established in Annex 5 (Special Treatment).

2. Low tariff bindings in developing countries should be allowed to be renegotiated in relation to food security crops.

3. Special Safeguard Clause: A revised SSG should be available to all developing countries as part of the AoA. This would allow the introduction of appropriate safety measures, including whatever instruments are necessary to respond to import surges in food security crops. There are several proposals already in circulation which could provide the basis for such a clause. Consideration should also be given for extending the revised SSG to cover crops which have the potential to substitute for local food security crops - wheat may not be a domestic food security crop in Bangladesh, but a surge in wheat imports can threaten producers of other staples.

4. Those countries with total domestic support at or below the de minimis level should be allowed to maintain appropriate levels of tariff bindings as a special and differential measure, keeping in mind their developmental and food security needs and high distortions prevalent in the international markets so as to protect the livelihood of their very large percentage of population dependent on agriculture. The appropriate levels of tariff bindings should necessarily be linked to the trade distortions in the areas of market access, domestic support and export competition being practiced by the developed countries. Reduction commitments by developing countries should be made conditional on a down-payment by developed countries in the form of a reduction in trade-distorting support.

Domestic Support
1. Article 6.2 (exemptions for domestic support in developing countries) should be made permanent for developing country support to LI/RP farmers. Add the following categories of domestic support
· 'support to promote the integration of LI/RP producers, e.g. through subsidised credit or capacity building on marketing and other market cost reduction measures.'
· 'measures to increase domestic production of staple crops as a percentage of overall consumption'
· current spending on transportation costs for food security crops from surplus to deficit parts of a country. (Annex 2, para 2(g) already gives exemption on capital spending on a range of infrastructure)

2. Negative product specific support should be allowed to be offset against positive non-product specific support

3. EITHER: If provided for food security purposes, product and non product specific support should be allowed to exceed existing de minimis levels.
OR
a higher de minimis level in countries with low or zero AMS.

4. Annex 2, para 13 currently exempts regional assistance programmes from AMS calculations, but insists that all producers should be eligible for such assistance. This should be revised to allow governments to give greater assistance to LI/RP producers, if they consider this a necessary part of their national poverty reduction strategy.

5. Article 13 (the peace clause) should not be renewed, but measures taken by developing countries under Annex 2 (Green Box) and Article 6 (S&D) should be exempt from any action under the subsidies agreement.

6. Developing country governments should be able to purchase food security crops for public distribution at stable, not world, prices.

Export Subsidies
Appropriate flexibility should be provided to developing countries to be able to promote exports.

LDCS REJECT A NEW ROUND FOR DOHA
Yash Tandon

In a remarkable show of unity, the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) meeting in Zanzibar, 22-24 July 2001, declared in a decisive manner that they were not ready to get into a new round of trade negotiations at Doha. Ever since the fateful collapse of the Seattle meeting of the WTO the developed countries, especially the European Union, have been trying to persuade the LDCs that their interests were best served by agreeing to a new round. At Zanzibar the LDCs were unanimous in declaring "… the scope of future multilateral trade negotiations will have to take into account the inability of LDCs to participate effectively in negotiations on a broad agenda and implement new obligations due to the well-known limited capacity of the LDCs." (LDCs' Development Agenda at the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference Negotiating Objectives and Proposals - LDC/MM/ZNZ/3, 24 July 2001).

Explaining this further in his closing address, the Minister for Industry and Trade of Tanzania, Iddi Simba, in his capacity as Chairman of the meeting said, "From the perspective of the Developed Countries, as we have understood them, the professed goal is to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in Doha. From the perspective of the developing countries, there are many who would prefer to ensure the enhanced implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements and the advancement of negotiations focusing on the review issues and the in-built agenda, through the mechanism of the WTO structures. Most of us are not ready for a New Round. There are strong reasons for our apprehension about a New Round as we understand it."

Among these reasons, Minister Simba explained, was the fear that once they get into binding commitments, the LDCs might find themselves at the sanctions end of the process. "The WTO is a trade negotiating body which, in the end, creates binding obligations and a mechanism for sanctions in case of violations. We obviously need to be very careful about getting into new obligations; and certainly we must not succumb to the pressure for rushing into a new round which most of us cannot even define. The magnitude of responsibilities emanating from the Multilateral Trading System (MTS) is immense."

In the final text containing "Negotiating Objectives and Proposals" the LDC delegates focused their agenda primarily on three issues: market access, implementation, and the "built-in agenda". The one issue on market access that engaged the delegates was the issue of Rules of Origin. Bangladesh, supported by Nepal and Bhutan, argued that these should be "liberalized" so as to ensure a full and effective utilization of preferences. Stringent regulations on Rules of Origin, they argued, made it impossible for LDCs to take advantage of the preferences. Many delegates, however, were opposed to the word "liberalized". After lengthy discussion, it was agreed to substitute the word "realistic and flexible" for the word "liberalize", thus ensuring consensus on the one issue that looked like breaking the unity of the LDC group. It was also agreed that wherever the word "liberalized" occurred in the text, it should be substituted by a more appropriate terminology. The chairman explained that liberalization, in the case of many LDCs, has led to deindustrialisation and increasing poverty and unemployment. Liberalisation, it appears, has become another dirty word in the vocabulary of the LDCs, and the developing countries generally.

On implementation, the delegates identified a number of issues where they hoped "significant movement" would be made "before, during and after the Doha Conference". These issues included outstanding commitments made by the developed countries in relation to Agriculture, Services, subsidies, SPS and TBT, Textiles, TRIMS, TRIMS, Customs Valuation, Anti-dumping and countervailing actions, and Safeguards. On the last issue, the delegates proposed: "LDCs should be exempted from all safeguard actions. LDCs that are implementing safeguard actions should be exempted from undertaking compensatory measures."

On Built-in Agenda, which is part of the mandated agenda for Doha, the LDCs defined their negotiating positions in respect of Agriculture, Trade in Services and TRIPS. Some of the provisions of TRIPS - Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights - are coming for review at Doha. The LDCs took the position that in relation to Article 27.3b of TRIPs, the review process should clarify that plants, animals and parts of plants and animals, including gene sequences and biological processes for the production of plants, animals and their parts, "must not be granted patents." This is a clear and decisive demand for the unpatentability of living organisms. The delegates also declared: "Essential drugs included in the WHO list should be excluded from patentability."

The assembled delegates in Zanzibar included many LDC countries that are not yet members of the WTO. Many are at various stages of application or negotiations for accession, but ever since 1997 few LDCs have secured membership on account of cumbersome, onerous and stringent rules of entry. At Zanzibar the LDCs proposed, inter alia: "In view of LDCs'special economic situation and their development, financial and trade needs, WTO members should exercise restraint in seeking concessions in the bilateral accession negotiations on market access for goods and services in keeping with the letter and spirit of the provisions of the Ministerial Decision on Measures in Favour of the Least Developed Countries."

In all these proposals coming up for negotiations in Doha, the LDCs insisted on two cross-cutting issues. One is in respect of "Special and differential treatment". This, the delegates insisted, needs to be part and parcel of the negotiations on matters of concern to the LDCs. And the second relates to the provision of technical assistance to enable the LDCs the necessary capacity both to negotiate in the process in a meaningful manner, and to benefit from their integration into the multilateral trade regime.

Ironically, the one set of issues on which the LDC countries meeting in Zanzibar spent least time was the set that falls under the category called "New Issues." This is ironical because it is this set of issues on which the developed countries have spent the most time and energy in trying to get them on board at Doha. These include the Singapore issues (Trade and Investment, Competition policy, Transparency in Government Procurement, and Trade facilitation), the Geneva issue (e-commerce), and other issues such as labour standards, environment and industrial tariffs. The LDCs noted that they were not demanders on these issues. And, furthermore, they argued that they were in no position, "materially, technically or psychologically" (as the Chairman put it) to negotiate on these issues. In relation to Investment, Competition Policy and Transparency in Government Procurement, the LDCs took the position that all these issues were under study by the WTO in the various working groups, and that these studies have not been completed, and therefore there was no substantive basis for entering into negotiations on these issues. On Trade and Environment, the LDCs took the position that they attached importance to the "on-going negotiations in the Committee on Trade and Environment", that these negotiations must continue, but emphasized that "under no circumstances should environmental considerations be used for protectionist purposes against LDCs' products."

It is an oft-proclaimed and declared objective of trade that it is not an end in itself but a means to the upliftment of the poor and the marginalized sections of the global community out of their poverty and marginalization. This is what the developed countries also say. The only country on the African continent described (some say, falsely) as a "developed" country is South Africa. On the eve of the Zanzibar meeting, South Africa called members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to a meeting in Johannesburg to persuade them to agree to a New Round at Doha, which South Africa, like all developed countries, argues would be of benefit to the developing countries. In Zanzibar, however, at least the LDC members of the SADC region (that includes, among others, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Lesotho) took the unanimous view that a New Round would not be welcome at Doha.

The richer members of the international community have often expressed their commitment to improve the lives and living conditions of the poorest of the global community. Zanzibar was the voice of the latter. The assembled delegates hailed the Zanzibar meeting of the LDCs as a major landmark in demonstrating the unity of the poorest 49 members of the international community on what they expected out of Doha. The question is whether at Doha the rich members will have the ears to hear the voices of the poor.

Produced by the International South Group Network (ISGN) Director and Editor: Y. Tandon; Advisor on SEATINI: B. L. Das
Editorial Assistance: Helene Bank, Rosalina Muroyi and Raj Patel
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