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The current trade system favours the rich. For example, rich countries can afford to offer large subsidies to their producers whilst poor countries cannot. Producers from rich countries are therefore able to sell their goods at more competitive prices, giving them an unfair trade advantage. Trade justice means changing the rules to favour the poor until they are empowered to compete on equal terms.
These gross inequalities in the current international trade system have devastating consequences. Every 8 seconds a child dies of hunger. Millions of people are struggling to survive on less than 1US dollar a day whilst many companies and individuals have more wealth than entire nations.
Current international rules and practices that govern trade are unfairly biased in favour of the richest nations and companies. These need to change, for example, so that poor countries have the right to sell their goods in rich countries.
If current rules are changed it is possible for trade to be a way for poor people to lift themselves out of poverty. Trade should also be environmentally sustainable, ensuring the planet is preserved for the benefit of all.
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Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition states that “Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties.”
The Right to Adequate Food
The Right to Adequate Food is a fundamental human right enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which was ratified by 156 states. State parties to the Convention not only recognise the right to an adequate standard of living, of which food is a vital component, but also take measures to “improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilisation of natural resources… to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.” (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11)
Hunger and Trade Liberalisation
The relationship between hunger and trade liberalisation is not immediately obvious and yet international trade policies and structural adjustment programmes imposed by international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank do play a major role in determining whether or not the right to adequate food is enjoyed by everyone. Examining this link and collecting the evidence to show the impact of trade liberalisation on the Right to Adequate Food is the subject of a study carried out by FIAN International (Food First Information and Action Network) for the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. This study is available on the Ecumenical Advocacy Website.
Challenging Unjust Policies
As YMCA programmes try to tackle poverty, it is important to keep in mind that there are policies and structures at national and international levels that are responsible for the lack of food, jobs, healthcare and other social services necessary for a person, a family or a community to live decently. In this respect, advocacy for economic justice is not about giving food or just empowering people to build sustainable livelihoods but also about challenging unjust policies that prevent people from living full lives.
The World Alliance of YMCAs is a founding member of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and participates actively in its campaigns on global trade and HIV and AIDS. The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance brings together more than 100 churches and international ecumenical organisations worldwide to respond to issues related to global trade and HIV and AIDS.
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The international trade system stands at a crossroads. In one direction lies politically difficult and complex choices concerning equity, sustainability and poverty eradication, which could make the trade system work for people and the environment, and also, in the long run, save it. The other direction offers clearer-cut, perhaps easier options to stick with the status quo, ignores complex problems and pursues trade liberalisation as an end in itself. However, this could exacerbate current disaffection and bring the trade system to its knees.
The international trade regime needs fundamental change if it is to succeed and benefit us all. The world needs international trade rules, but to date these have favoured the narrow commercial interests of the most powerful trading nations and the largest corporations, at the expense of the wider public interest and smaller economic enterprises. In order to rebalance the global trading system, international trade rules and institutions must take their place within the broad system of international agreements aimed at sustainable development, poverty eradication and the promotion of human rights, and recognise the importance of local and regional trade as an engine for sustainable development and poverty eradication.
The WTO trade agreements are seriously flawed because they largely prioritise liberalisation and deregulation in the private interest over national (and potentially international) regulation in the public interest. Ironically, in areas where certain "liberalisation" policies could potentially have a range of social and environmental benefits (e.g. in policy areas such as export support, fisheries subsidies, market access for textiles and the flexible use of intellectual property rights), exceptions have been made in practice, and the trade system has again been used to benefit the few, rather than the many.
The challenge facing the international community is to make the trade system reflect the concerns of civil society and work for poverty eradication and sustainable development. The breakdown of WTO talks in Seattle should mark the beginning of a new era in trade policy-making, which puts the needs of people, animals and the environment at its heart.
Opposite ends of two extremes, severe poverty and enormous wealth continue to grow. More than one third of humanity - some 2.5 billion people - live in a state of poverty. The combined income of the 850 million people who will go to bed hungry tonight and every night is equal to that of the world's 225 richest people. The United Nations reports that three of the world's richest people have incomes that exceed the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of 48 of the least developed countries.
While average global consumption has doubled in the last 24 years, in the same time, consumption in the average household in Africa decreased by 20%. Examples of such disparity abound.
The prospects do not look bright for poor countries, many of which have been forced to cut back on already limited health and education budgets as part of structural adjustment policies (SAPs). SAPs are International Monetary Fund policies imposed by western banks to ensure that the poor countries pay back loans plus interest made to them. SAPs also require removal of state subsidies, i.e. on basic foodstuffs; privatising state industries/agencies, transport, hospitals etc.; increasing exports by planting cash crops instead of subsistence food crops; and encouraging international investment. Women and children have suffered the most from these policies.
In this decade, the intensity of the peasants' struggles for land, the workers' battle for wages and job security, people's determined fight against poverty, rising prices of basic necessities and unemployment point to the harsh reality that all is not well with the world under "globalisation".
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
1. Global Trade might well look like an issue so far away and so hard to influence, that it might evoke apathy rather than intent to intervene. But apathy is not an option. Just too many victims - hundreds and thousands of millions - would wish the YMCA to get itself together and bring to the fore the questions of Christian ethics in trade. What must a Trade for Justice campaign in the YMCA include? At grassroots with the poor? Internationally with the World Bank, IMF, and the WTO?
2. Fair Trade. How can the YMCA link grassroots self-employment initiatives in developing countries to fair trade initiatives in industrialised countries?
3. Trade systems and barriers exploit and further oppress the poor. How can youth be mobilised in the campaigns for economic initiatives that dismantle and rectify this system from the root causes? How can these efforts be given international scope? What forms of study-exchange-training programmes can the YMCA introduce to make a difference in issues of trade and economic injustice?
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Extr. of the Workbook of the 15th World Council of YMCAs 2002
We no longer live in a world that is scheduled. Patterns of economics have created an interconnectedness and virtual inseparability between nation states. In some ways this represents a positive dimension and manifestation of what might be called the global family or community. When people live in a state of interdependence it must normally contribute towards unity and oneness. Because within this notion of integration lies the notion of "one world-one people".
But there is something distinctly wrong in the current trends of global interdependence and integration. This integration has largely been confined to the realm of economic activity. Moreover, this economic activity has brought benefits to a small segment of society. On the whole, it is obvious that the last ten years of economic liberalisation have created widening disparity between rich and poor countries, and the rich and poor within developing countries. Despite all the boasts that are made about the growth in GDP (gross domestic product), production levels and technological advancement, there is more hunger, deprivation and grinding poverty. Wealth does not seem to flow down. It does not even trickle down, despite claims that the flow of wealth is guaranteed in a growth-oriented economic strategy. Indeed, the unparalleled affluence for a relatively small number of people has assumed embarrassing proportions.
Today's economic system is driven by market economics. Its protagonists have failed to address the inherent weaknesses of a system in which hundreds of millions of people matter little or nothing. Within the framework of market economics all that matters is profit. Justice and sustainability are non-factors. Those who are critics of this system argue that market economics work on the basis of competition and not everybody has access to a world where economics have no borders. There are winners and losers. They further argue that competition in global economics is not on a level playing field. Those who are rich and powerful control the decision-making processes and the institutions that benefit them. Consequently, they will almost always be winners.
We are seriously challenged by the escalating weakening of governments and the parallel growth of the power of transnational corporations over governments and multilateral institutions. We must be led to account for how workers, farmers and women are being increasingly excluded and marginalised, and placed on the fringes of economic activity. Multilateral institutions are becoming less accountable to people and policies, such as structural adjustment, and so-called poverty reduction strategies are actually having the reverse effect.
Our major thrusts should be to develop effective strategies and campaigns on global trade with alternative visions. This is not something that can happen as an abstraction at a global level. It can be achieved only by concerted action between people, NGOs and civil society organisations working at local, national and international levels to develop new values and visions of a just and sustainable society. Some concrete steps in this direction might include:
o Developing projects at grassroots level with components of international co-operation between YMCAs in the South and North to market local products and thus serve as grounds for fair trade practices and policies.
o advancing the economic status of women - addressing the feminisation of poverty by means of grassroots projects that empower women through economics thus protecting gender justice.
o Promoting indigenous alternatives to products that are affordable to people at the grassroots level, including in the agricultural and informal sectors.
o Conscientising young people in schools and universities through training and information about the nature of trade globalisation, and providing them with values, knowledge, and tools of social analysis.
o Co-operating with other NGOs, churches and civil society organisations to campaign, lobby and advocate for change at national and international level, so that the voices of the suffering are amplified.
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