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CID Trade Forum: Trade Liberalisation and Poverty (7)

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Aid for Trade - Why and How? [PDF]

This report by International Lawyers and Economists Against Poverty argues that trade negotiations as represented by the Doha Round will promote development only if two conditions are met: first an ambitious and balanced market access package in key areas such as agriculture or services; second, actions to address developing countries insufficient infrastructural, institutional and human capacity. This second condition is best met through Aid. Hence the report's title Aid for Trade.

http://www.ileapinitiative.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=0&func=download&filecatid=235&lang=en

(Added: Fri Mar 10 2006   Modified: Tue Aug 22 2006   Hits: 397)

Lula's Flame Still Burns

Writing from the World Social Forum being held in Caracas Brazilian author Arthur Ituassu discusses the relative performances of the new generation of South American leftwing leaders. In particular he argues that, while much recent attention has been paid to Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, Lula da Silva (the president of Brazil) still has much to offer the continent.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/lula_flame_3218.jsp

(Added: Wed Feb 01 2006   Modified: Thu Mar 23 2006   Hits: 112)

Thinking Outside the Box about Trade, Development, and Poverty Reduction

Mainstream policy economics has been gradually lowering its claims about the positive impact of trade on development and poverty reduction. The new approach is a compassionate agenda that says if trade liberalization is to reduce poverty, it must be flanked by public investment in infrastructure and human capital. However, this new agenda raises numerous questions about how to finance public investments, whether these investments should be sequenced in advance of liberalization, and whether trade liberalization is desirable if the investments are not made. Most importantly, the new agenda still does not address the systemic critique that trade liberalization hinders development by eliminating important policy tools. This policy paper proposes an alternative framework for thinking about trade, development, and poverty reduction. That framework emphasizes domestic commerce promotion and strategic value-chain analysis that focuses on how developing countries can capture more of the value they create. The paper also argues for incremental policy change rather than grand liberalizations. In a world of uncertainty, optimal decision theory advises "Go slow if you don't know." Finally, the paper proposes a tropical-products trade round that can produce a win-win outcome for both North and South.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3050

(Added: Wed Feb 01 2006   Modified: Thu Jun 08 2006   Hits: 117)

Developing Countries in International Trade:Trade and Development Index [pdf]

To act as a genuine engine of development, trade must lead to steady improvements in human conditions by expanding the range of people's choices. This is the central concern of this new UN publication. The trade and development index (TDI), is an attempt by the UNCTAD secretariat to capture the complex interaction between trade and development and, in the process, to monitor the trade and development performance of countries. The results indicate that the top 20 are all developed countries, except Singapore. Only three developing countries are in the top 30. At the other extreme all the bottom 20, excepting Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, are either least developed countries (LDCs) or African countries, or both. The report highlights the severity of the trade and development problems facing LDCs and African countries.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/trade/2005/1210tradedev.pdf

(Added: Wed Jan 11 2006   Modified: Tue Aug 22 2006   Hits: 287)

Estimating GDP effects of trade liberalisation on developing countries [230KB]

This Christian Aid report, written by Egor Kraev, examines export and import growth to provide estimates of the impact of trade liberalisation. The report highlights the foregone opportunities for aggregate demand stimulation or balance of trade improvement in the past decade and finds that the increase in import demand due to trade liberalisation outpaced the growth in exports. Trade liberalisation has likely resulted in additional balance of payments deficits and aggregate demand loss. The bulk of this loss is carried by the poor.

http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/506liberalisation/FinalPaper4.pdf

(Added: Mon Dec 19 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 149)

The Shrinking Gains from Trade

The World Bank has just released its new projections of the possible gains from further trade liberalization, and the results may alarm those hoping the upcoming round of World Trade Organization negotiations will deliver on their promise of development. Where just two years ago the Bank was projecting more than $500 billion in developing country gains from trade, 80% of those supposed gains now are gone. This website links to a number of reports that provide further analysis of the limited gains accruing to developing countries

http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/shrinking_gains.html

(Added: Mon Dec 12 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 106)

The Shrinking Gains from Trade: A Critical Assessment of Doha Round Projections [pdf 135KB]

In the discussion leading up to the WTO negotiations in Cancún in 2003, it was common to hear about the hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits available from trade liberalization. Exact numbers and definitions varied, but $500 billion of benefits to the developing world was a widely quoted figure. By 2005, leading up to the next round of negotiations in Hong Kong, it was difficult to find estimates of benefits to the developing world as high as $100 billion — and easy to find figures much lower than that. This Global Development and Environment Institute Working paper questions the validity of the intial trade theory models used. The paper highlights more "realistic" models that suggest gains made by developing countries are likely to be significantly more modest.

http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/05-01ShrinkingGains.pdf

(Added: Mon Dec 12 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 92)

Environmental Health and International Trade: linkages and methodologies [PDF 236 KB]

This paper examines how trade policy (broadly defined to cover investment, intellectual property rights, goods, services, etc.) impacts on environmental health. It gauges the feasibility and desirability of incorporating environmental health aspects in Canada's environmental assessments of trade liberalization agreements. It written by Aaron Cosbey, Luke Eric Peterson, László Pintér and published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development in March 2005.

http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2005/trade_environmental_health.pdf

(Added: Fri Oct 28 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 188)

The impact of the second-hand clothing trade on developing countries

The global trade in second-hand clothing (SHC) is worth more than $1 billion each year. Supporters of the SHC industry point out that the trade creates employment in the receiving countries (transporting, cleaning, repairing, restyling, etc.). It also provides low-cost clothing for people living in poverty. At the same time, however, there are concerns that the trade may be undermining local textile and garment industries, and livelihoods in some developing countries. This review was initiated to consider the evidence of the impact of the SHC trade on developing country producers and consumers. It focuses particularly on West Africa, as Oxfam International is active in promoting the livelihoods of cotton farmers in the region and consequently has an interest in the regional textile and clothing sectors.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/research_shc.htm?ito=1721&itc=0

(Added: Tue Oct 25 2005   Modified: Wed Jun 21 2006   Hits: 63)

Business as usual: The World Bank, the IMF and the liberalisation agenda [pdf] 627 KB

Christian Aid's new report warns against a complacent acceptance of the G8's statement in July 2005 that developing countries should have the right to set their own economic policies. It shows that despite previous commitments from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to give poor countries more freedom to choose their own trade policies, little of substance has changed.

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/indepth/509condition/

(Added: Mon Sep 26 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 213)

The Economics of failure: The real cost of 'free' trade for poor countries (PDF

Christian World Service briefing paper. June 2005. This report shows that sub-Saharan Africa US$272 billion worse off because of 'free' trade policies forced on them as a condition of receiving aid and debt relief. The figure represents the income that poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa have lost over the past 20 years as a result of being forced to open their markets to imports. In human terms it represents tens of thousands of destroyed lives and years of lost opportunity. Two decades of trade liberalisation have cost sub-Saharan Africa approximately what it has received in aid over the same period. The amount lost would have been sufficient to wipe out all of sub-Saharan Africa's debt and allow all of its children to be vaccinated and educated.

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/indepth/506liberalisation/Economics%20of%20failure.pdf

(Added: Fri Jul 01 2005   Hits: 57)

Public Services International

PSI is a global union federation made up of more than 600 trade unions. We represent more than 20 million workers who deliver public services in 160 countries around the world. PSI and its affiliates are committed to building quality public services that meet the needs of workers and communities. Priorities include global campaigns for water, energy and health services. PSI promotes gender equality, worker rights, trade union capacity building, equity and diversity. PSI is also active in trade and development debates.

http://www.world-psi.org

(Added: Thu Jun 16 2005   Hits: 102)

Lessons Learned on Trade and Sustainable Development

Available in PDF (2458.4 kb). This book distills the lessons from six years of research undertaken by and for the Trade Knowledge Network (1998 - 2004). It draws on in-country research, thematic research and workshop papers to identify the key issues, and explores in depth what the TKN research has to say about them. The result is an excellent primer on the issues faced by the South in the area of trade and sustainable development. The book includes a companion CD covering all of the surveyed TKN research (more than 40 papers in all, including several in Spanish).

http://www.tradeknowledgenetwork.net/publication.aspx?id=631

(Added: Thu May 26 2005   Modified: Thu Jun 16 2005   Hits: 102)

The Trade Knowledge Network (TKN)

The Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is the collaboration of research institutions in developed and developing countries located in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. The Trade Knowledge Network is aimed at building long-term capacity to address issues of trade and sustainable development in developing country research institutions, non-governmental organizations and governments through increased awareness, knowledge and understanding of the issues. The TKN links network members and consolidates new and existing research on trade and sustainable development. The Trade Knowledge Network is managed collaboratively by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (Canada) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (Switzerland). TKN is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation; the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the International Development Research Centre (IDRC); the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

http://www.tradeknowledgenetwork.net/

(Added: Thu May 26 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 71)

A Capabilities Approach to Trade and Sustainable Development: Using Sen's Conception of Development to Re-examine the Debates [PDF 437.4 kb]

International Institute for Sustainable Development, by Aaron Cosbey, 2004. This paper takes the thinking of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and uses it to fashion a comprehensive new definition of sustainable development. It then asks how trade and trade liberalization might contribute to sustainable development so defined, surveying a complex web of potential impacts. It draws important lessons for civil society, developing countries and the WTO negotiations from the analysis.

http://www.iisd.org/publications/publication.asp?pno=661

(Added: Tue Apr 26 2005   Modified: Thu Jun 16 2005   Hits: 365)

Global Week of Action: 10-16 April 2005

In November 2003, over 100 trade activists from 50 countries took part in a historic gathering - the International Trade Campaign Conference, in Delhi, India - from which they issued the global call to a Week of Action. Following this there was discussion with international networks before the idea was presented to a seminar of 500 people at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, in January 2004. Thousands of key campaigners are already inspired by what the Week could achieve; and hundreds of groups, campaigns and networks all over the world have begun organising. We are mobilising well ahead of the major 'official' events of 2005, the G8 Summit in Scotland in July, the MDG Summit in New York in September, the Summit of the Americas in Argentina in November and the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December. Millions of people are getting ready to take action to say that 'free trade is not working' and to call on governments and the international financial institutions to 'stop forcing economic liberalisation on the world's poor'.

http://www.april2005.org/

(Added: Fri Mar 18 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 229)

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY brings together a wide cross section of nearly 100 charities, campaigns, trade unions, faith groups and celebrities who are united by a common belief that 2005 offers a unprecedented opportunity for global change.

http://www.makepovertyhistory.org

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 456)

Ravaged Sri Lanka seeks EU duty cut

Times Online, By Carl Mortished, International Business Editor, January 07, 2005. Sri Lanka is calling on America and Europe to remove punitive tariffs imposed on the country's clothing exports as it attempts to rebuild itself after suffering devastation in the Asian tsunami disaster. The impoverished island state is asking Washington and Brussels to lift trade barriers that cost Sri Lankan exporters hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Sri Lanka's garment-making industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people stitching shirts and underwear for multinational retailers, underpins half the island's economy, but its competitiveness is being undermined by tariff walls in rich countries.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18690-1429683,00.html

(Added: Mon Jan 17 2005   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 129)

3D

3D -> Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy promotes collaboration amongst trade, development and human rights professionals, to ensure that trade rules are developed and applied in ways that promote an equitable economy. 3D is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization. Its members are individuals actively engaged in favour of human rights, sustainable development and the promotion of an equitable economy.

http://www.3dthree.org

(Added: Thu Dec 16 2004   Modified: Fri Jul 21 2006   Hits: 268)

Trade liberalisation and the role of International Financial Institutions (PDF 149.49 KB)

Aldo Caliari & Mariama Williams, for the Commonwealth Foundation, UK. This article provides a situation analysis of emerging issues facing developing countries in the multilateral trade and finance system. The expanded involvement of the IFIs in trade-related activities has resulted in constraints on the national development strategies of borrowing countries, and the inter-linkages between trade and financial policies can reinforce and prolong poverty and inequality. It argues that, while policy integration is vital for realising effective solutions to developmental problems, the current methods of trade-finance policy integration are unlikely to resolve these issues.

http://www.coc.org/pdfs/coc/CFM_ComFoundation.pdf

(Added: Wed Nov 10 2004   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 159)

The Impact of trade liberalisation on enterprises in small backward economies: the case of Chad and Gabon

École des hautes études commerciales (HEC). May 2002. This paper examines the impact of the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994 and of trade and fiscal reforms on enterprise development in Chad and Gabon. These reforms provide a natural experiment to assess the impact of trade liberalisation in countries with a small and backward manufacturing sector. The empirical analysis is based on a new panel data base covering almost the total population of manufacturing firms in Chad and Gabon, and containing data spanning from the year before to two years after t he reforms. The paper finds that although firms response to changing incentives was non-negligible, with a shift of output from non tradables to tradables and an increase in productivity, the reform process was unable to generate a virtuous and self-sustained circle, where export expansion brings a generalized productivity increase which in turn feeds on further export growth

http://ideas.repec.org/p/iea/carech/0205.html

(Added: Fri Oct 22 2004   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 88)

Trade Liberalization: Poverty's friend or foe?

IDRC, By Kevin Conway, 2004-07-30. They are the familiar images of global trade talks: streets turned into battle zones, conference centres into fortresses. Entrenched positions on both sides of the barricades have effectively stifled public debate on trade liberalization. Is the developing world healthier, wealthier, better fed, and better educated thanks to trade-led economic growth? Or has it triggered a rising economic tide that will float yachts but threatens to swamp simpler craft anchored in poverty?

http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-62673-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

(Added: Thu Sep 09 2004   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 149)

What Strategies are Viable for Developing Countries Today?: The World Trade Organization and the Shrinking of 'Development Space' (pdf)

Development Research Centre Crisis States Programme Working Paper no.31, June 2003. By Robert Hunter Wade. Abstract: The world is experiencing a surge of international regulations aimed at limiting the development policy options of developing country governments. Of the three big agreements coming out of the Uruguay Round - on investment measures (TRIMS), trade in services (GATS), and intellectual property rights (TRIPS) - the first two limit the authority of developing country governments to constrain the choices of companies operating or hoping to operate in their territory, while the third requires the governments to enforce rigorous property rights of foreign (generally Western) firms in the face of 'theft' by domestic firms. Together the agreements make comprehensively illegal many of the industrial policy instruments used in the successful East Asian developers to nurture their own firms, industries and technological capacities. They are likely to lock in the position of Western countries at the top of the world hierarchy of wealth. The paper describes how the three agreements, in the name of motherhood principles like 'reciprocity' and 'no distortions', constitute a modern version of Friedrich List's "kicking away the ladder". It then outlines some needed changes in the way we think about development and in the role of multilateral organizations. It concludes that the practical prospects for change along these lines are slender, but not negligible.

http://www.crisisstates.com/download/wp/WP31RW.pdf

(Added: Tue Jun 29 2004   Modified: Mon Jun 20 2005   Hits: 275)

From Doha to Cancun: Development and the WTO: Can trade really benefit all?

North-South Institute. 2003 The sixth edition of the Canadian Development Report (CDR) looks at multilateral trade arrangements from both the perspectives of the North and the South. It highlights relevant development issues such as those regarding market access and the WTO Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) raised at the November 2001 WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar.

http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/publications/cdr/2003/default.asp

(Added: Fri Jun 25 2004   Modified: Wed Oct 18 2006   Hits: 156)

The Least Developed Countries Report 2004: Linking International Trade with Poverty Reduction (pdf & purchase)

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 27/05/04. UNCTAD´s Least Developed Countries Report provides a comprehensive and authoritative source of socio-economic analysis and data on the world´s most impoverished countries. The Report is intended for a broad readership of governments, policy makers, researchers and all those involved with least developed countries in particular and development policy in general. Each Report contains a statistical annex, which provides basic date on the LDCs. The Least Developed Countries, 2004 Report assesses the relationship between international trade and poverty within the LDCs, and identifies national and international policies that can make trade a more effective mechanism for poverty reduction in these countries.

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=3074&lang=1

(Added: Tue Jun 15 2004   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 369)

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