Poor Countries Blast Trade Protectionism

Poor Nations Blast Trade Protectionism, Obsession With Security
UN Wire - May 26, 2004

Led by China and Brazil, leaders from developing nations meeting to address poverty reduction today blasted developed countries' focus on security issues and protectionist trade measures at the expense of meaningful assistance to the world's poor.

An "unfair and irrational international political and economic order" has led to widespread poverty in developing countries, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, speaking at the three-day Conference on Scaling Up Poverty Reduction organized by the World Bank in Shanghai, urging developed nations to provide more aid to poor countries, increase debt relief, accelerate technology transfer and end trade protectionism.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the "Washington consensus," that open trade and privatization are the cures for poverty, should be abandoned. So, too, should the excessive focus on security issues (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo! News, May 26).

"Hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction," Lula said. "It claims millions of victims each year. There will be no peace without development and no development without social justice."

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, apparently referring to the United States, said the anger engendered by poverty "will not yield to military interventions" (Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, May 26).

On trade protectionism, Lula said cows in some rich nations receive more in subsidies than poor people earn per day in developing countries.

"It is not possible that cows in some developed countries receive more than $2 subsidies per day while half of the world's population have to survive with less than that," he said. The United Nations estimates that around 2.8 billion people worldwide live on less than $2 per day.

More than 1,000 experts on development projects from around the world are attending the conference, convened so nations can share lessons learned from the fight against poverty (Agencia EFE/Terra, May 26, U.N. Wire translation).

"This meeting will address the question of what it is that collectively we can do to try and give a world to the younger people that is safe and secure," said World Bank President James Wolfensohn (AFP/Yahoo! News).