AFRICAN Civil Society Organisations (CSO) have called for the suspension of all negotiations under the Doha Round of global trade talks that began yesterday under the 7th World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Switzerland.

And the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) has described the 7th WTO meetings as housekeeping measures since the sessions would not focus on negotiations.

The CSOs warned that if completed on the current terms, the Doha Round would aggravate the problems of many developing economies since it would take away the policy instruments needed to address the current crisis and to prevent similar crises in the future.

According to a statement released yesterday, the CSOs stated that the neo-liberal policies implemented in developing countries over the past decades and reinforced by the rules of the WTO had wreaked havoc on the economies and lives of the people.

They stated that those policies were also responsible for the on-going global financial and economic crisis that had devastated African countries.
“The same policies form the essence of the proposals currently on the table in the WTO’s current Doha Round of negotiations for further trade liberalisation and deregulation. If completed on the current terms, the Doha round will aggravate the problems of our economies. It will also take away the very policy instruments needed (and being applied) to address the current crisis and to prevent similar crises in the future,” they stated.

“Contrary to proclamations such as those of G20 governments and officials of the WTO, a speedy conclusion of the Doha Round is not an appropriate response to the global crises. In fact, the scale, sweep and impact of these crises demand the exact opposite, at the very least, the Doha negotiations must be suspended as governments face up to the full dimensions, impact and implications of the crises.”

They stated that African governments must live up to their responsibility to promote the needs and interests of their people and protect them from further devastation at the hands of neo-liberal policies implemented in the past and of effects of current and the crisis.

“Furthermore, it is time for our governments to stand up for those pro-developmental positions that they have articulated since the launch of the Doha round, including the countless proposals for a pro-development outcome of the Doha negotiations articulated at the level of Africa Union Ministers of Trade,” they stated.

The CSOs that are currently in Geneva under the coordination of the Africa Trade Network (ATN) include trade unions, farmers groups, faith-based groups, women’s organisations, and non-governmental organisations and representatives of social movements.
And the ICTSD stated that people should expect no surprises at the 7th WTO conference.

“Trade ministers from around the world have descended on Geneva for the WTO's first formal Ministerial Conference in four years. They are set to review the WTO's activities and discuss the institution’s role in aiding recovery from the global economic crisis. But no major decisions or even serious negotiations are likely, even on the troubled Doha Round trade talks,” stated the ICTSD. “This meeting will be a housekeeping exercise and not a negotiating session since the WTO is scared to risk another collapse hence the summit will focus on ‘the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment’ but what will a non-negotiating meeting entail?”