[Comment] World's poor missed the show

From The Toronto Star

Carol Goar

Cast your mind back to early summer. Live 8 concerts were taking place around the world.

Big-name actors and musicians were leading a global finger-snapping campaign to drive home the message that poverty kills a child every three seconds. Oxfam could barely keep up with the demand for its white Make Poverty History bracelets.

As the leaders of the world's richest nations gathered in Gleneagles, Scotland, for their annual summit, British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to make action on Africa — home to 34 of the world's poorest 50 countries — the centrepiece of the agenda.

Two days later, the leaders emerged from their luxury hotel with a three-point plan:

# They would double their aid to Africa by 2010 and aim to donate 0.7 per cent of their national income to the world's poorest countries by 2015.

# They would write off the debts of the world's 18 poorest countries.

# And they would eliminate all forms of agricultural export subsidies, allowing developing countries to compete in world markets.

Item one was always a polite fiction. The participants knew that Canada and the United States had no intention of making a long-term aid commitment. Ottawa did, however, make progress on its 3-year-old plan to double its foreign aid by 2009 (bringing it up to 0.32 per cent of the nation's income).

Item two was a re-announcement. The debt-relief plan had been unveiled a month before the meeting by the finance ministers of the eight summit nations. Ottawa has delivered on its share of the package.

The fate of item three year will be clear by Sunday.

Politicians and negotiators from 148 countries are in Hong Kong trying to hammer out a deal to give poor countries a foothold in the global trading system.

The prospects don't look good. No one expects a comprehensive agreement to cut agricultural tariffs and subsidies. At best, the meeting will produce a modest pact, offering the world's least developed countries limited access to industrial markets. At worst, it will end in total collapse, like the World Trade Organization's last ministerial gathering in Mexico, two years ago.

To complicate matters, farmers from developing countries are more afraid of success than failure.

They fear that any deal would bring in a flood of agricultural imports from Europe and the United States, destroying their livelihoods. Even if the rich countries agreed to scale back their subsidies — which they are far from doing — African farmers wouldn't be able to compete with their mass-produced rice, sugar, cotton, poultry and dairy products.

What's more, delegates from developing countries doubt that Western governments would end their farm support programs; they'd just find a way to reconfigure them.

Canada has a certain sympathy for African farmers. It is fighting to protect the agricultural marketing boards that shield its dairy, egg and poultry farmers from cross-border competition.

But it is firmly on the side of the Americans when it comes to demanding that developing countries open their borders in exchange for cuts in farm subsidies and tariffs.

Having one foot in both worlds might seem to make Canada a good mediator between the two camps. But, according to trade experts, it has the opposite effect. Canada's rich trading partners regard its stance as hypocritical. The developing countries see it as an unreliable and self-interested ally.

What it most frustrating for the leaders of the Make Poverty History campaign — who are less visible but no less committed than they were in July — is that trade reform has the potential to free Africa from its reliance on global charity.

But it would require some adjustments in thinking.

Free traders would have to acknowledge that chopping tariffs and subsidies alone won't level the playing field for struggling African farmers.

Rich countries would have to recognize that poor nations need a chance to build viable local economies before being thrust into the global marketplace.

Canada and other industrial powers would have to open their markets to exports from poor nations without seeking immediate reciprocal access.

And global trade negotiators would have to appreciate that tariffs are a vital source of funds for some African governments. In Ghana, for instance, they provide 26.8 per cent of tax revenues.

As 2005 winds down, the hopes of early summer have faded.

This won't be a breakthrough year for Africa. At best, it will be a year of grudging, incremental progress.

Thousands of citizens raised their voices in solidarity with the world's poorest people. But their governments chose not to make history.