|
CUTS-ARC in collaboration with partner organisations held the Pre-Hong Kong LDC Civil Society Consultative Forum from the 23 - 25 June 2005 in Livingstone, Zambia. Participants discussed issues of trade and development, and took the opportunity to communicate to the ministers their views on LDC countries concerns and positions on trade negotiations in the WTO and regional trade agreements.
The programme, papers, memorandum and civil society statement are now available.
During the Civil Society Forum on International Trade SARPN coordinated and sponsored the presentation of the following papers:
Perspectives on the role of trade in alleviating poverty within the context of the developmental and policy imperatives of Southern Africa, G Ndirangu, Oxfam GB.
Trade, development and poverty: a Millennium Development Goals (MDG) perspective, by Venkatesh Seshamani, University of Zambia.
Towards Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Southern Africa, Sanusha Naidu (co-authored by Ben Roberts)
Resource persons sponsored by SARPN also led discussion groups on:
-
TRIPS and Public Health Issues,
-
Trade and poverty reduction.
These fed into the development of the Statement that was made to the LDC Ministers by the CSOs.
SARPN also used the platform to disseminate outcomes of the CFA regional consultative forum held between 14th and 15th June 2005.
SARPN's intention was to ensure that during the workshop deliberations the following were achieved:
-
Strengthen the component of the meeting that deals with profiling the importance of international trade policy for development and poverty reduction.
-
Bring to the centre of the discussion the development and poverty reduction priority as articulated under the Millennium Development Goals.
-
Communicate to the meeting the development concerns and priorities identified by civil society actors who participated in the Commission for Africa regional consultation process.
Post workshop:
SARPN will consider creating a platform to continuously engage CSO to follow-up on recommendations and highlighting progress and activities on the SARPN website.
|
|
