Select Committee on International Development Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)[60]

  The International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED) is a non-governmental policy research institute, working to promote more sustainable and equitable global development. Set up in 1971, just before the first UN Earth Summit, we are based in London, and work with an extensive network of colleagues and collaborators around the world. Our long-standing partnerships provide us with access to a range of actors, structures and processes at all levels, from smallholder farmers and big city slum-dwellers through national governments and regional NGOs, to global institutions and processes. In alliance with others, we seek to help shape a future that ends global poverty and delivers fair and sound management of the world's resources.(www.iied.org)

  The Cancún meeting was intended to take forward the Doha Development round. It generated considerable anger and disillusionment. It also demonstrated the hypocrisy underlying the US-EU rhetoric in favour of addressing world poverty, with two sets of rules clearly apparent. On the rich country front, there was a total absence of leadership. This vacuum in terms of foresight and vision needs to be addressed with urgency. The UK should consider how best to work with like-minded countries to show a willingness to do business in a way more in keeping with the idea of a development focused round. The Millennium Development Goals set out the global consensus on what needs to be achieved by 2015. Unfortunately, the MDGs establish a rather different set of objectives to those being pursued through the WTO process, despite the emphasis on "development" in the Doha round. If we take the MDGs as the highest level of global commitment, we should then be seeking how best trade can contribute to these ambitious goals. There is already a worrying trend towards accepting that the MDGs will not be met in a significant number of poorer countries. Rather than provoking outrage, this failure in global commitment to development appears to be accepted with a shrug of the shoulders.

  One positive outcome of the negotiations has been the much greater cohesion demonstrated by developing country groups. There were high levels of energy in the negotiating sessions amongst the delegates from the G21 and Africa group, and the belief raised that at last something might happen in a different way. The adversarial approach taken by the EU and US in relation to developing country groupings was very counter-productive. The UK must find the means to establish a better level of trust. The best way to do this would be agreeing a focus on the agricultural subsidy and market access issues. The Cancún agenda was greatly over-loaded. It now requires re-focusing on critical areas where EU and US negotiators will have to give ground if they are to win back the confidence of the rest of the world.

SO WHAT SHOULD BE THE NEXT STEPS?

Cotton

  The cotton initiative needs to be taken forward. Cotton provides a central element in the incomes and livelihoods of millions of farmers and their families in many West African countries. A special initiative had been developed by four West African countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali—asking for cuts in subsidies to cotton farmers in the medium term and compensation for the collapse in world market prices in the immediate term. The dismissal of this initiative despite it having been sponsored by the WTO-DG, provides a powerful emblem of the larger issues and ways of doing business at Cancún. It demonstrates clearly the attitude of rich countries towards the priorities of the developing world. In particular, the Bush administration in the run-up to a US Presidential election clearly feels they cannot afford to alienate any possible voters and appear unmoved by any of the arguments for why their farm subsidies should be cut. Their attitude has been that West African farmers should adjust by diversifying into other crops. The smallholder farmers of West Africa and their governments depend greatly on cotton to pay their bills and "grow their way out of poverty". It is outrageous that rich country attitudes should block such a pathway. The Farm Bill subsidies contravene the WTO rules. Equally, by any standards of global justice, the West African cotton farmers constitute a more worthy case than the much fewer and richer cotton farmers of the southern US. While the issue of EU subsidies to cotton is of much lesser importance, an early move by the EU to support the cotton initiative would give a powerful signal to the developing world.

Policy coherence

  We must address policy coherence within the UK Government as regards trade, development and addressing global poverty. A curious disparity has emerged between the approaches of DFID and DTI. Minister Hewitt's statement[61] regarding the need to transform smallholder farmers into industrial workers suggests a very different understanding of poverty and development issues to that of DFID. For DFID, the emphasis is rightly on the central role that agriculture can play in generating incomes for farmers to improve their welfare. By contrast, the DTI would seem to be advocating the establishment of large scale commercial farms as a means to raise incomes, productivity and yields. Yet such a positive relationship between output and size is often not borne out by the evidence. Rather, the promotion of large farms has been used by governments and interest groups seeking to justify the grabbing of land from smallholders. The "large farm-small farm" debate involves a political choice as to the kind of farming sector desired. There is no inevitable process which leads inexorably to a given outcome. In the case of West Africa, for example, large commercial farms have often been established with strong government backing and preferential access to land, credit, markets, etc. In most cases, their performance has been disastrous[62]. By contrast, the enormous increases in food and export crops in many West African countries has been very largely due to the smallholder sector, which has shown a remarkable degree of resilience and capacity to adapt to difficult circumstances.

  Sweden's new development policy[63] aims to review both domestic and external policies for their likely impact on global development goals. This approach is underpinned by a core set of values. This approach provides a valuable model for seeking greater coherence amongst EU member states. The UK Government should be encouraged to pursue such an approach within the UK and in pan-European contexts.

Development education

  In the medium to longer term, the British public need to gain a better understanding of global issues, the importance of building a fairer world and addressing the unacceptable level of inequality that characterises our world today. Addressing these inequalities will mean re-negotiating the UK way of life to some extent. The MDGs provide a very clear set of messages for communicating some of the priorities around global development and could usefully offer such a focused programme for development education. A fairer deal on trade for developing countries will bring structural changes within EU economies to create space for activities in which poorer countries can establish a comparative advantage.

October 2003







60   This note is based on IIED's attendance at Cancún, discussions with our extensive network of partners around the world, and a range of project activities. Short papers prepared by IIED for Cancún on trade and agriculture, forestry, and water are being submitted attached to this note. (Not printed. Copies placed in the Library.) Back

61   Reported in the UK press, Daily Telegraph, 13 September 2003. Back

62   See Transformations in West African Agriculture, Camilla Toulmin & Bara Gueye, IIED (2003). A report for the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club, Paris. (Copy placed in the Library.) Back

63   Shared responsibility: Sweden's policy for global development. Government Bill 2002-03: 122 Stockholm 15 May 2003. Back


 
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