WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE OXFAM TRADE CAMPAIGN
Walden Bello
Oxfam International recently launched a global campaign to promote wider
access for developing country products in northern markets.
I have a lot of respect for Oxfam, and I do agree with many things in the
Oxfam report, but I feel that it provides the wrong focus and wrong
direction for the movement against corporate-driven globalization during
this critical period.
First of all, the focus on market access misleads people into believing
that it is access to the markets of the North that is the central need and
central problem of the global trading system. Far from it. The central
problem is the paradigm of free trade that the World Trade Organization is
relentlessly imposing on the global trading system. Reduced market access
for Southern products and agricultural subsidies do pose problems for the
Southern economies, but far more destructive are the measures of
indisciminate liberalization of trade--in industry, services, and
agriculture--that the WTO is pushing. The so-called new issues--or efforts
by the WTO to liberalize and gain control over investment, competition
policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation--are the cutting
edge of the current WTO drive to put free trade uber alles, as Ralph Nader
says, and opposition to them should be the main thrust of international
civil society.
Second, the market access focus does, as Food First noted in its response
to the Oxfam Report, promote the paradigm of export-oriented growth, since
it is monopolistic export agricultural interests that will be the main
beneficiaries of greater agricultural market access to northern markets.
Even in the case of staple foods like rice and corn, it is not small
farmers that benefit but big middlemen. A focus on market access for
agricultural products from the South in the North will also increase
pressures on developing countries to open up their markets as the quid pro
quo for the accelerated opening of markets in the North. Thus, this
strategy simply undermines the effort of many small-holder-based agrarian
movements in the South to reorient production from export agriculture
based on big landed and corporate interests to small-farmer based
production systems producing principally for the local market and
protected by tariffs and quotas from unfair competition by subsidized
products dumped by the Northern countries.
To be fair, Oxfam does say it is concerned about the future of
smallholder-based agrarian systems in its report, and I do believe it
sincerely is. However, the thrust of its campaign on market access in the
North undermines this concern.
Market access as a central thrust in the effort to reform the world
trading system is not being pushed by any developing country or developing
country grouping. As far as I know, it is mainly being pushed by the
Cairns Group, and within the Cairns Group by the trio of Australia, New
Zealand, and Argentina. Indeed, leading officials in both the Philippines
and Indonesia, are now talking about taking their countries out of the
Cairns Group, partly because they feel that the agenda has been hijacked
by those members obsessed with the market access issue. It is incongruous
that Oxfam has emerged as a civil society advocate for the Cairns Group
position.
The Washington Post has suggested that Oxfam's market access focus
indicates that Oxfam has joined the free market camp. We not agree. At the
same time, the Post's misperception is perfectly understandable given the
Oxfam focus on market access as the evil to be flayed.
The problem we face is a comprehensive one--a determined effort to impose
a neo-liberal trading order by an organization that is unrepresentative,
undemocratic, non-transparent, and dominated by the trading superpowers.
Supporting the efforts of developing country governments and civil society
movements to stop this steamroller by bringing up the implementation
agenda, exposing the decision-making structure, supporting food
sovereignty, and stopping the extension of WTO jurisdiction over the new
issues should be the content and thrust of a campaign by international
civil society groups. To its credit, the South- North "Our World Is Not
For Sale Campaign" has adopted this stance. I would recommend that Oxfam
take the same route.
It is also unfortunate that in its report, Oxfam branded a large sector of
the movement against corporate-driven globalization as "globaphobes." This
sort of name-calling is not helpful. In fact, it has been the so-called
"globaphobes" that have created the dynamic movement that has shaken the
international financial and trade institutions and forced them to listen
to the views of organizations like Oxfam. It would be nice if Oxfam
acknowledged this instead of promoting caricatures of others in the
movement against corporate- driven globalization.
I am sorry to have to differ publicly with Oxfam on this issue, especially
since I have a great deal of respect for its humanitarian and development
work. But it is only via debate and dialogue among partners and allies
that we can chart a solid path forward.
Walden Bello is Executive Director of Focus on the Global South
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