Rich rob poor of US $100 billion a year - Oxfam

"For every dollar we give in aid, two are stolen through unfair trade," says David Gallagher of Oxfam.

Gallagher was speaking in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday at the launch of Make Trade Fair, a global campaign aimed at changing the rules of trade. He said the flouting of international trade rules by rich countries cost the poor world more than US $100 billion a year.

The campaign in Africa was launched in Johannesburg and Dakar simultaneously, as the 144 member states of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) starts to work on a new agenda for trade negotiations that will determine how world trade will be regulated in the future.

In a report titled "Rigged Rules and Double Standards", Oxfam revealed some interesting statistics on Thursday.

"More than 128 million people could be lifted out of poverty if Africa, Latin America, East Asia and South Asia each increased their share of exports by just one percent," it said. A one percent increase in exports for Africa was worth a staggering five times the amount it received in aid and debt relief combined, it added.

A number of experts attending the launch of the campaign agreed that unfair trade, if left unchecked, would further deepen the divide between the rich north and developing countries.

Unfair trade practices, many analysts said, impacted on national and international labour practices, agriculture and access to medicines. Africa, the poorest continent, according to one analyst, bore the brunt of the continued "rigging of trade rules".

"There has been an unprecedented loss of jobs in the last decade. Unemployment has risen and conditions for workers has worsened. The labour movement, along with other organisations, must come together to force access to resources. Unfortunately, this does not come on a platter," President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Willie Madisha, said.

Madisha added that up until now developing countries have been divided in their challenge to international trade organisations and called for unity among developing nations. "The poor must speak with one voice if there is to be any progress made in gaining access to resources," he said.

According to the Oxfam report, in the last decade the world's poorest five percent lost almost a quarter of their real income, while the richest five percent gained 12 percent. Trade, though not exclusively, has been an important factor in this widening gap. For every US $100 generated by world exports, US $97 goes to the high and middle income countries, and only US $3 to low income countries.

Agriculture, the backbone of many developing countries' economies, was highlighted as one of the most traded commodities subjected to double standards.

"The fundamental rules have changed in this new trade environment and developing country producers are at a distinct disadvantage. Farmer subsidies, marketing support and import tariffs have been dismantled to meet WTO agreements and the conditionalities imposed with International Monetary Fund loans," Charlie Mather, senior lecturer at the Wits School of Geography, said.

Mather added that in the face of what may appear as an insurmountable challenge, developing countries needed to develop capacity in dealing with the double standards. He said the longer term strategy involved reforming the WTO so that it represented different trading interests.

Of the 36,1 million people living with HIV/AIDS, an overwhelming 95 percent live in developing countries. Access to cheap drugs has become a contentious issue between drug manufacturers and the developing world.

Jonathan Berger, an HIV/AIDS researcher at the University of Witwatersrand, highlighted the South African government's HIV/AIDS policy. Berger said that while WTO agreement on intellectual property rights had strengthened the internal protection of national patents, it did not prevent the government from taking legal steps to ensure a meaningful reduction in drug prices.

"Either uninformed or misinformed, the South African government has not taken the opportunity presented to them by the WTO agreement on intellectual property rights. The agreement actually permits developing countries to challenge drug companies to reduce their prices," Berger said.

Oxfam is calling for a radical reform of the international trading system so that trade can become the engine for poverty reduction. For the full report: http://www.maketradefair.com