Trade
Justice can reduce poverty
March 24, 2006, Lusaka
Trade justice is about giving poor people and
countries the chance to work their own way out of poverty: giving
farmers the chance to earn enough to feed their families and to
send their children to school; allowing industries to develop,
creating jobs and opportunities. But instead of trade justice,
free trade is being forced on developing countries like Zambia.
It is hurting poor people and not helping them at all and it is
undermining democracy by denying poor people; especially from
the grassroots, a greater say in decisions that affect their lives.
One would ask what free trade is. Free trade
is trade within and between countries that is free from government
intervention – that is; no incentives for producers and
no barriers to trade. Removing this support and protection is
devastating for poor farmers and industries, making it harder
for the poorest to work their way out of poverty. The rich countries
argue that moving towards free trade is the best way out of poverty
for poor countries. But we, as the Organisation Development and
Community Management Trust (ODCMT) and Trade Justice Movement
disagree to this practice. The only way that poor people can work
their way out of poverty is through trade justice. We believe
that trade justice is the best change for poor countries to combat
poverty. It would give poor-country governments the flexibility
to choose trade policies that will help promote development and
lift the poorest out of poverty.
Liberalisation; which is the gradual removal
of government intervention in markets, is another form of injustice
which forces poor countries into abject poverty. A country can
liberalise its trade policies by stopping government help –
by ending subsidies and government support for local producers,
opening markets by removing barriers that limit the amount of
imports into the country and privatizing services such as water,
health, education and transport. Stopping government support for
local producers will threaten the country’s food security
and productivity. Opening up of our markets will result into Zambia
becoming a dumping ground for goods and services that we can provide
for ourselves and privatizing services such as water, health,
transport and education will be a clear violation of basic human
rights.
What Zambia and other developing countries need
in a world that is quickly turning to liberalization are strong
and concrete policies that protect and support their economies
and not enforced free trade and liberalization. Inappropriate
liberalization threatens the livelihoods of millions of farmers
and traders in the developing world. But what is truly unjust
is that liberalization denies that governments of poor countries
the right to choose policies that rich countries themselves used
to develop their own economies.
Poor countries need policies that will limit
unfair competition by reducing cheaper imports, and requiring
companies to use local products instead of those from abroad,
helping infant industries and poor farmers by favouring local
companies when giving out contracts, providing producers with
the services they need (for example; seed, fertilizer and marketing),
and offering preferential credit or tax incentives and making
sure investment by business benefits poor people by regulating
the activities of large transnational companies.
If the above measures were good enough for the rich north to
develop their economies; then they should be good enough for the
developing world as well.
IRENE BANDA
ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
