Gender Agenda in the WTO The Doha Development Round, Gender and Social Reproduction.

Gender Agenda in the

WTO

The Doha Development Round,

Gender and Social Reproduction

Seminar on Gender, Justice, Globalization and Development Dec. 17th, 2004

Abstract Introduction to the WTO and The Doha

Development Round What is GATS? What is AoA? What is TRIPS? What is TRIMS? Recommendations to the Improvement

of the WTO concerning different topics

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Critics on the WTO The majority of WTO members are developing countries they should have a share in the growth of world trade in regard of their needs of economic development.WTO negotiations have made no mention of:- the different impact trade liberalization has on women and men in various regions of the world- its affect on the care and the development of the poor even though analysis shows that trade and gender are connected in many ways. Numerous women’s NGOs protest against the current framework of WTO but also exists general “silencing” about the issue that liberalization & privatization occur on a gendered terrain.

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The 4th Ministerial Conference of the World

Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar, November 2001

WTO member governments agreed to launch new negotiations. They also agreed to work on other issues, in particular the implementation of the present agreements. The entire package is called the Doha Development Agenda (DDA).

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Main Goals: integrate the developing countries in the global

trade regime DC still face many battles with industrialized

countries on marked access in agriculture, transparency, textiles, anti-dumping measures, and the implementation of the agreements in the Uruguay Round on Textiles.

The Doha agreement mandated the conclusion of further negations by Jan. 2005

Explicit consensuses have to be reached among such controversial issues as the GATS, TRIPS, TRIMS and the AoA.

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The General Agreement on Trade in Services GATS

GATS was originally agreed at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.

Aim: remove any restrictions and internal government regulations in the area of service delivery that are considered to be ‘barriers to trade’.

GATS is irreversible citizens will no longer have the democratic right to

decide about regulation of services missing transparency and general lack of important

information, as well as the asymmetry in power bargaining and the option of irreversibility are strong obstacles to the implementation of the Doha mandate.

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Recommendations to the Improvement of the WTO

It is urgently needed:- comprehensive study to provide an input prior to the conclusion of the WTO negotiations by ‘05 about the actors that are involved in readdressing the gender imbalances and inequities inherent in the current agreements and negotiations!

The recommendations emerged out of a gender perspective to the gender-neutral reports and studies that exist.

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1. Comprehensive Gender Study of the Entire WTO Process

Only very few empirical and analytical studies exist about the relationship between trade and gender.

Several Women’s NGOs from developing countries try to create a public space from the “bottom-up” to mobilize and lobby WTO member states to integrate gender in WTO with little studies, short pamphlets and newsletters.

We need alternative approaches that take into account the concern of development and peoples welfare.

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2. Develop Efficient Water Supply and Sanitary Services

At present 1.2 billion people lack access to water supply and 2.4 billion to improved sanitation. women’s’ and children’s’ situations are the worst

UN set in his MD the goal to halve the proportion of people without the access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Improvements would first of all benefit women and girls who are responsible for collecting the water

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3. Develop Appropriate Institutional Structures Weaker member states of the WTO need

assistance to establish an appropriate institutional and regulatory framework

GATS provides a legal trade framework for trade in services just as water services.

Even if a government decides to fully liberalize its water market there will be a lack of competition in the “monopoly” structured water and sanitation industry.

SAPs have not improved situation: poor families have to spend up to 20 % of their income on water.

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4. Capacity Buildingparticularly for Women in

Weaker States The WTO should strengthen the regulatory and

institutional capacity of weaker members – Women should be the main target of capacity building through education and special training.

more education, income generation, cultural and political involvement, rest and recreation for woman and girls.

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5. National Regulation of Banking Sector

In 5th Protocol of GATS 102 member states of the WTO and the EU-

Commission have either signaled their readiness to liberalize financial services or have made very specific and extensive liberalization requests to NICs.

Liberalize capital movements, deregulate foreign exchange markets and promoting the right to set up banks dramatic consequences to the position of local firms

Before liberalization, NICs should first establish a national protection of their financial markets in order not to cause instability in their already fragile economies.

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6. Special Access to Bank Loans

for Women Small-Scale Enterprises The economic and social impacts of the

financial instability has greater effect on woman than it does on men.

Many small and medium sized enterprises are owned and operated by women.

Women are largely excluded from formal sector - In informal sector they encounter large difficulties in gaining access to credit.

If the GATS commitments are being accomplished, national governments ability to give preferential credit and cross-subsidization to small and medium sized firms are limited.

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7. Exclude public services from GATS

The EU has excluded the public services from the “initial draft offers”

In many of the DCs, privatization of social services has already progressed considerably as result of the SAPs

GATS aim to privatize social services transforms basic human rights into “commodities” which require the payment of users’ fees which only the richer families can afford.

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8. Guarantee access of public services for the poor

Access to basic services just as: water electricity, health care, education fees.

From poor families it will be mostly women who have to allocate more time to social reproduction activities.

Also woman as workers are largely affected because the public service sector is their key labor sector.

GATS should include rules that guarantee citizen’s, and especially women’s, access to improved services, better job conditions or job creation.

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9. Labor is no a commodity

GATS is being criticized for promoting the unrestricted movement of capital but not of natural persons.

Discussions are directed a GATS-Visa that would focus on specific categories or skilled labor – GATS could be the vehicle to open labor markets in developed countries.

BUT because labor is not a commodity it is not negotiable like any other commodity. It has to be negotiated in the context of social rights and social protection.

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10. Special protection for low-skilled women from

LDCs A cross border circuit has emerged: 1st between economic crisis in developing

countries and the states’ reduction of service provisions in developed countries

2nd the increasing participation of professional women in higher positions of formal labor market coupled with their need for public services or alternatively the help of migrant women to perform household tasks and child care.

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11. Review the impact of agricultural liberalization

In some developing countries 80 % of the basic food is produced by women

equitable effective and sustainable agriculture and rural development cannot be pursued without an explicit recognition of these realities!

When small-scale farmers are displaced, woman bear the mayor burden of looking for jobs and also feeding the family.

Export-oriented production can also increase woman’s employment and income

BUT does not automatically mean a benefit in Woman’s and children’s health and education

often a decline in leisure time or a reduction in care provisions. 17/28


12. Increase Women’s Rights at the WTO and the Capacity

Building The WTO governance structure should be

democratized allow for more transparency and admit woman

to participate in governance around water, rural development, land reform, and food sovereignty.

Woman should participate in the negotiations in agriculture and gender related issues.

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13. Promote Women’s Legal Access to Resources

Woman lack the access to resources in agriculture

Legal and customary constraints to ownership of or access to land, natural resources, capital, credit often hinder woman to take advantage of the economic opportunities that may be created by export orientation in the agricultural sector and to act against the negative impacts of liberalization.

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What is TRIPS? The Agreement on Trade-Related Property

Rights Main objective: provide minimum standards of

protection for all intellectual property applied to technologies in products and processes.

TRIPS is very important in the areas of Public Health, biodiversity, traditional knowledge and food security, mainly areas of the social reproduction work for which mostly woman are responsible.

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14. Elaborating Alternatives on TRIPS

Paragr. 6 of the Doha Decl. on TRIPS permitted Developing Cs to override drug patents and import generic copies of pharmaceutical products

Problem: Countries that lack sufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities can’t either produce generics nor import them.

TRIPS restricts access to medicines, technology and knowledge !!

Alternative to TRIPS: Exclusion of LDC with time restrictions from TRIPS obligations

they do not have sufficient financial, administrative and personal resources to create a working and efficient system of legal protection.

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15. Protection of Traditional/Indigenous

Knowledge Women:play a great role in the selection of seedthe management of breedinghave unique knowledge of the local species conservation and sustainable use of plant and animal diversity

Governments have to ensure that the protection of indigenous wisdom, traditional innovation, knowledge and practices, is consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity

All living organisms, genes and plants should be excluded from being patented.

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What is TRIMS? The Agreement on Trade-Related Investment

Measures, negotiated during the Uruguay Round, applies to measures that affect trade in goods.

AIMS: Eliminate trade-restrictive and distorting effects of investment measures that is prohibited by the provisions of GATT Article III (national treatment) or Article XI (quantitative restrictions)…

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16. Develop and implement gender sensitive and pro

development targets From a gender perspective: some of the most important dimensions of

TRIMS concern quantity & quality of male female employment

Governments are not able to control the extent of foreign investment in particular areas of the economy and can not protect the impact on local producers (mostly women)

Developing countries should be granted the right to develop and implement gender sensitive and pro development targets and requirements for FDI and the right to use gender equality and pro poverty eradicating investment screens.

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17. Support developing countries’ technical

assistance

for capital upgrading and technological improvement in the small business sector that is also gender aware/sensitive to the priorities and concerns of women owned business.

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18. Anchor Core Labor Standards in the WTO

Core labor standards include freedom to bargain collectively, freedom of association, elimination of discrimination in the workplace abuse including forced labor and child labor.

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19. Increasing Women’s Representation in the

WTO Women have to be included as political actors in all levels of governments and in international and transnational governance structures.

It is necessary to include Gender Mainstreaming as a strategy in all areas of the WTO implemented on two levels:

Operational procedures need to ensure gender concerns into policies, programs and projects

Institutional structures need to change so that gender can be integrated at the center of development practice.

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Principles for the adoption of Gender Mainstreaming in international organization:

system-wide responsibility for implementation, a clear political will and allocation of adequate resources for GM

establishment for control system/monitor progress

strong efforts to introduce women to all levels of decision-making

Also in the European Commission Gender should be integrated!!

Gender Mainstreaming as a system-wide concept = a holistic concept of development

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Gender Agenda in the WTO The Doha Development Round, Gender and Social Reproduction.

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