Public Agenda (Ghana) | August 17, 2003
In this era of globalisation one of the certainties of visiting a developed country like Ghana, is the perceptible western lifestyle one sees on the streets, hotels and even homes.
This is made possible by the intrusion of powerful transnational multi-media that bombard homes with the `so-called western virtues.'
Worse still, are the economic reforms that were introduced by the World Bank and the IMF in a bid to hook Ghana to the world economy. With trade liberalization firmly in place, Ghana has been reduced to a net importer of industrial and consumer items. Just how beneficial these western virtues or cultures are to Ghanaians remains one riddle to be solved. Kristin Dawkins is Vice President for International Programmes of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis, Minnesota. While on a duty tour of Lagos and Accra last week something bizarre struck her. As a tourist she had expected to be treated to Ghanaian culture and dishes, that was not the case. According to Dawkins, the breakfast she took every morning comprised of Nescafe or Lipton, sugar, jam, milk and butter that had been imported from Europe. Worse still, she woke up one morning to shocking TV advertisement extolling the intrinsic worth of American rice. She said the advertisement on rice created the impression that if one did not eat American rice; one would not survive the next day. Ghana imports approximately $100 million worth of rice annually, according to official statistics, despite local efforts to boost local production and consumption.
But unknown to Ghanaians, the country produces one of the finest varieties of rice in the world. Dawkins said the nutritious `red rice' specie produced in Ghana is not produced anywhere in the world. For that reason she asked Ghanaians to do everything to protect the `red rice', citing a case in which India loses $100 million annually in rice exports due to the patenting of a variety of Indian rice by a Texas company. "I did not believe that this advertisement is allowed on your television. There is no point importing all these items into your country, when you can produce them", Dawkins told a forum on `Tariffs, Subsidies and Trade last Monday. She was flown in from Lagos at the expense of the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC).
Dawkins told the gathering that the government took the right decision by slapping tariffs on rice and poultry, adding that the one-sided world trade, which benefits only the western countries, has its root at the undemocratic structures of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. She said the decision making process at these institutions are vested in her native United States of America, Germany, Japan, France and the Netherlands etc.
According to Dawkins, these powerful countries are responsible for all the major decisions that influence world trade in their favour, living in its trail13 million poor farmers mostly from Africa who have lost their livelihood.
On the strength of the marginalisation of African farmers, Dawkins advised African negotiators at the forthcoming WTO meeting in Cancum, Mexico not to allow new issues to be added to the original ones slated for discussion. In her view, African negotiators should not debate the new issues unless the developed countries implement all the rules agreed at the 1994 Uruguay Round. She said the new issues are meant to divert attention from the Uruguay Round.
Besides, she charged African negotiators to reject further negotiations bordering on the patenting of plants and seeds by the developed countries. Dawkins explained that whereas the developed countries insist that their drugs cannot be reproduced in developing countries without patents, they had turned round and were pressing to have unrestricted access to plants and seeds from the developing countries without paying any money.
"If you do not restrict them, they will come and take your knowledge and your plants to their countries, manufacture drugs and claim patents for the drugs", Dawkins stressed.
She therefore urged the group to be resolute and make no further concessions unless the western countries respect the rules of the game.
One of the issues on the agenda of the Cancum meeting is the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The issue at stake relates to the review of provisions of article 27.3(b) of TRIPS agreement. The African Group is concerned that the review of 27.3(b) has not been finalized, having started way back in 1999. The African group is going to argue that the requirement to protect plant varieties should not in any manner undermine, but support the right of members to protect important public policy goals relating to food security, nutrition, the elimination of rural poverty and the integrity of local communities.
The group will also argue that the protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, particularly those originating from developing countries is an important means of addressing poverty and is rightly a matter of equity and due recognition for the custodians of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
Despite the pressing need for the balanced trade between the west and the north, developing countries have been bullied into submission. It remains to be seen if the Cancum negotiation will bring hope to African farmers.Public Agenda (Ghana):
