Civil society to watch over LDC negotiators at WTO

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Staff Correspondent - New Age
http://www.newagebd.com/2005/dec/10/front.html

The LDCs@MC6, a platform of civil society organisations, will keep an eye on negotiators of the least developed countries as well as those from developed and developing countries during the sixth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation scheduled in Hong Kong, December 13-18.
The announcement was made at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Friday.

Ziaul Hoque Mukta, a director of Karmojibi Nari, a women’s rights organisation, presenting the keynote address, said the demands of the least developed countries have been consistently similar at all the WTO ministerials including the one at Hong Kong.
He said the negotiators of the least developed countries were often not committed to these demands and thus agreed to concede on key points. ‘We have observed that the government trade representatives from LDCs do no take a strong stance on their declared position during the ministerial conferences,’ said Mukta.
Over one hundred social activists along with representatives of 11 civil society organisations are expected to attend the conference.
Citing a six-point demand, Mukta urged the developed and developing countries to grant the poorest traders in world, duty and quota free market access for their agricultural and non-agricultural products. He also demanded free movement of labour from the poor countries to other richer countries.
The platform also demanded relaxed rules of origin and technical assistance to the poorest WTO members so they are able to deal with their lack of production capacity. The LDCs@MC6 also demanded there should be ‘no patent on life’.
‘Our demands are quite similar to the positions of the LDC governments,’ said Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, general secretary of Campaign for Good Governance — Supro.
He said the platform will focus on the interests of the least developed countries and try to involve civil society organisations from other LDCs to raise a collective voice at the global trade forum.
Reza said the Global Call to Action against Poverty supported the demands of free market access and free movement of labour under mode 4 of the services agreement.
The executive director of Voice, Ahmed Swapan, Abul Hossain from Labour Forum in WTO also spoke among others.
The civil society organisations included the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Unnayan Onneshan, INCIDINE, Karmojibi Nari, Supro, Action Aid Bangladesh, Jagarta Juba Sangha, Lokoj, Ubinig and Voice. Representatives of these organisations are scheduled to attend the ministerial conference.