WILPF Reccomendations for the UNCTAD Briefing, 20 May 2005
Prepared by the Global Economic Justice Committee

Poverty,Trade

• The economic value of women’s unpaid input to the economy should be taken into account in monetary considerations.
• Poor people and women in particular should be enabled to be involved in decision making and should have representation at all trade negotiations.

Debt

• The unpayable debts of the world’s poorest countries should be cancelled in full, by fair and transparent means;
• There should be cancellation for all countries that need it;
• No harmful economic policy reforms should be demanded;
• Debt cancellation funding should not come from aid budgets;
• Bodies should be set up within the countries concerned to oversee how the benefits of debt cancellation are used and that the poor and particularly women are adequately represented on these bodies.
• The funding for this should come from reduction in military expenditure, aviation tax and tax on financial transactions.

Aid

• A binding timetable for donors to reach the target of 0.7 per cent of national income for official development assistance should be set;
• There should be sustained increases until the 0.7% level is reached;
• This aid does not include funding for debt relief which should be additional to aid spending;
• Aid should be focussed on the poorest people;
• There should be no policy conditions such as trade liberalisation, deregulation, fiscal austerity or privatisation;
• Aid should be reliable and predictable.
• As stated by Kofi Annan in “Larger Freedom” Aid should be linked to local needs in countries' national strategies ... and not to the interest of suppliers in donor countries.
  but the funding should not come from the International Finance Facility as recommended in “Larger Freedom”.

Services

• Provision of basic services: water and sewage, health and social services, education should be taken out of the GATS negotiations. Governments and NOT TNCs should be responsible for ensuring that there is adequate provision of all basic services.
• Differential impacts on women and men, rural and urban businesses should be assessed.
• Steps should be taken to ensure that commodification of women, children and men as sex objects does not take place,
• Human Rights considerations should be included in all discussions and respect for Human Rights incorporated in all trade agreements.

Corporate Power and Regional Trade Agreements

• Developing countries must be allowed the freedom to choose their own routes to development; to make their own decisions about opening up their markets and to choose their own pace at which to liberalise if they wish to do so.
• Their own business ventures must be allowed to develop without competition from powerful TNCs
• In its negotiations about Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) with the Africa-Caribbean- Pacific countries (former colonies), the EU must drop its demand for reciprocal trade liberalisation, and urgently honour its commitment to provide ACP countries with viable non-reciprocal alternatives to EPAs.

(The following are adapted from the statement from the Sections of the Americas seminar Feb 04 in Costa Rica.)

• Social solidarity, distribution of wealth, human integrity, and environmental equilibrium must prevail over and above profit-making.
• Corporations must not be allowed to sue nation states nor to impose heavy fines for trade sanctions.
• Our democracies must be allowed to retain strong local governments and the various institutions that guard against abuse by military, corporate and state powers.
• Citizens must be guaranteed participation in decisions regarding these treaties (FTAs), in order to evaluate corporate globalization and to reconceptualize the nature of the societies we seek: societies in which the human rights identified in the UN charter and declarations are respected.
• There must be public transparency concerning these treaties and the status of negotiations
• There must be a minimal period of two years for debate in our countries, with a preliminary process of popular consultations with full resources and media access and by means of national plebiscites and referenda in those countries in which this is allowed by law and demanded by the people.