Campaign aiming for ‘trade justice’

CHANGING “glaringly unjust” rules to ensure fair trade is one of the key aims of the Make Poverty History campaign.

Together with an increase in the amount and effectiveness of aid and the cancellation of debt, the movement is calling for “trade justice” in the global marketplace.

At the moment, Make Poverty History says the odds are loaded in favour of the wealthiest nations, which flood poor countries with subsidised goods and drive down the price of local produce.

International charity Oxfam - one of the members of the Make Poverty History alliance - says wealthier countries spend one billion dollars a day on agricultural subsidies. For every dollar given to poor countries in aid, Oxfam say they lose two dollars to rich countries because of unfair trade barriers against their exports.

And when poor producers try to export to the richer nations, they pay tariffs four times higher than those from other rich countries, they say.

Added to that, they point out that despite poor countries producing most of the coffee, chocolate, cotton and copper used in the developed world, the price is set by the rich.

The Make Poverty History manifesto calls for trade justice, not free trade: “The rules of international trade are stacked in favour of the most powerful countries and their businesses.

“On the one hand these rules allow rich countries to pay their farmers and companies subsidies to export food, destroying the livelihoods of poor farmers. On the other, poverty eradication, human rights and environmental protection come a poor second to the goal of ‘eliminating trade barriers’. We need trade justice not free trade.”

The campaign is seeking an end to export subsidies in rich nations - for example to farmers in the EU - which mean poorer nations are left unable to compete.

And they want the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stop forcing poor nations to open their markets and allow the countries to choose how they trade with the rest of the world.