Africa: Is there other sustainable trade solutions outside the WTO

By African Bulletin on December 9, 2010

Nearly 200 countries are meeting in Mexico, since November the 30th to discuss about the planet global warming, but without any head of state participation, while most of them have attended the Copenhagen meeting the last year. Then any one can wonder if the Cancun meeting is held for nothing, mainly after Barack Obama’s part defeat in the U.S midterm elections, that raised very slim hopes to see the United States implement the ad they had made then, by adopting a short term legislation to reduce their own gas emissions.

As a result of absenteeism from Cancun, the business sector, in developing countries including the Africans, have understood that there is no viable solution outside the World Trade Organisation (WTO) system, because of the conflicting situation between regional and bilateral agreements with those of the WTO. Bilateralism cannot replace the multilateral trading system, as the price for improvements to market access in the short term would be much higher than in a multilateral context. Opening markets through bilateral agreements would be of huge economic load for developing countries, although there is no domestic industry to protect. Also we should consider that most of the existing regional agreements to which the developing countries participate are not comparable to the multilateral trading system, because the level of sub-regional trade is still low. The African sub-regional trade, despite its growth, is only 10% of the global exports. Facing this hopeless situation, the developing countries’ business sectors are lobbying their governments to return to the negotiating table. They understood that to have trade concessions granted to them, they must make concessions in return. The WTO is not a church or charity NGO. It is a market, and the principle of “give and take” is in force, a senior African participant said. Developing countries must be prepared to give something to get what they want. The business community in developing countries is willing to pay to ensure and promote their interests, and countries have no choice but to try, being pragmatic and focusing on good agreements and understandings… Such as the Meeting of Ministers of the Environment, currently taking place in Cancun, could agree on the creation of a Green Fund to benefit for poor countries facing climate change. Industrialised countries had pledged to give developing countries 30 billion dollars by 2012 and 100 billion by 2020 to help combat global warming, but didn’t agree on who will manage the fund( the BM or the U.N). It would facilitate the transfer of technologies and incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, knowing deforestation is responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, by adopting a program to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Finally the adoption of a global fund reforestation and adaptation to climate change (FRAC). But the question remains whether real agreements are concluded, and especially in what form will they be issued and implemented – bilateral or multilateral.