Fostering Equity & Accountability in the Trading System (FEATS)

LOGICAL FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS

SLOT Analysis of FEATS Programme

Fostering Equity & Accountability in the Trading System (FEATS)

Expected Outcomes

In today’s dynamic and integrating world the role and importance of civil society in economic governance assumes a greater significance than before. This is because independent policy making capabilities of nation-state are increasingly guided by multilateral institutions.

Moreover, increasing complexities within the multilateral trading system, being propounded by developed countries is adding to the inequities faced by developing countries which lack the capacity to analyse and advocate their concerns cogently. Once again it is the civil society, which can fill this gap to a large extent through an informed and vigilant approach, provided their capacity to do so is augmented by proper training, exposure and information.

Established in 1983 in India, Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) has been "pursuing economic equity and social justice within and across borders by persuading governments and empowering people". In 1996, it established the CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment (CUTS-CITEE) with the aim of becoming a global level institution for advocacy on issues of developing countries’ interest.

The FEATS programme is scientific consolidation and expansion of needs-based and mission-driven agenda of CUTS-CITEE, which is working at different levels, domestic, regional and international, on trade and development issues. The activities seek to transfer the skills and knowledge gained through the existing work programme of FEATS on capacity building and networking in India, South Asia and at the international level to eastern and southern African countries through training and networking, advocacy and dialogues, and information dissemination and outreach. Its objective is to promote South-South civil society cooperation on trade and development and create long-term capacity of civil society representatives of Africa to address the issues of equity and accountability vis-à-vis the linkages between trade and development.

In Africa, this three-year programme will be conducted out of CUTS Africa Resource Centre, Lusaka, Zambia. The total budget is US$300,000, of which HIVOS, Regional Office Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe agreed to provide a support of US$171,000 over three years. The amount can go up, depending on the scope and range of activities.

Today the world is becoming a global village typified by the dismantling of government intervention and moves towards free trade. The increasing liberalisation adds to the mobility of capital, and its expansion. Clearly the major beneficiaries in the new world trading order are the big businesses in the developed countries who are therefore pushing for the new paradigm of ‘markets’ as the solution for all problems.

Incidentally, new international arrangements have been put into a straitjacketed framework under the auspices of the GATT/WTO pursuant to the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. Moreover, the new international trade and economic regime relies on the theory of "contestability of markets" accompanied by diminishing levels of state intervention which implies the survival of the fittest. Once again the beneficiaries of this market-based paradigm are the big businesses.

It is important to note that, most of these big businesses--the prime movers and principal beneficiaries of liberalisation--are located in developed countries. In order to expand their wealth and profits, they are persuading their governments to get developing countries open up their markets. In this game, developing countries are finding it increasingly difficult to advocate their concerns and views because of lack of sufficient capacity on the part of policy makers including the civil society groups. This may likely to jeopardise their own economic security, and unable to cope with the social conflicts within the present environments.

The last decade saw an unprecedented lowering of tariffs and phenomenal increase in foreign investment flows. These have stimulated growth but unevenly both within and across borders. That is to say, in both developed and developing countries there is an increasing gap between the rich and the poor in the same society and this gap is increasing over the years. Ambitious globalisation has led to the financial crises in Mexico, Russia and parts of Asia, which have spurred new fears about economic reforms.

Another interesting and new phenomenon, which is manifesting itself in the global system, is the internationalisation of public interest civil society. This has been fostered by the information revolution and through several UN-organised international conferences in the past decade with heavy participation by the civil society. To a large extent this global democracy has and is being aided by progressive governments and foundations by extending the crucial financial, moral and intellectual support.

With the rapid flow of information across the globe at extremely low costs, the civil society is better placed than before to understand and talk to each other. A new thinking is thus emerging on several fora, that seeks to reassess the current situation on trade and investment liberalisation and its likely impact on developing countries.

In the civil society, the new thinking was spurred by the discovery of secret negotiations on the now defunct Multilateral Agreement on Investment by the 29-member industrialised nations club, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the widespread opposition to it. Following that, there is a groundswell of opinion against further blind progress towards trade and investment liberalisation, internationally. There is also the ubiquitous demand, which is being orchestrated by the civil society and others, that further liberalisation be accompanied by safety nets and good governance.

The 1997 assessment of Agenda-21, the Rio plan of action on sustainable development adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, showed that unsustainable trends were increasing at a faster rate than before. Many of these problems are being created due to increased economic activity without suitable regulatory action or safety nets. Sometimes these are poor in either enactment or implementation. The classic divide of environment vs. development often divides people across sections of society in many countries. Thus there are institutional problems at the national level for several reasons.

Several institutions exist under the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods system to deal with the myriad facets of global governance, but they are often under the influence of the global business. Whenever the system has sought to bridle the power of business it has been stopped and often checkmated. For examples, the United Nations in 1978 launched and debated a Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations for over 12 years but the same was aborted in 1992 due to the recalcitrance of business. Furthermore, some of these institutions at the international level are becoming increasingly obfuscated under the influence and fiat of global business.

These unhealthy trends were reflected in recent protests by the civil society groups in Seattle, Bangkok, Washington DC, Melbourne and Prague at the time of third ministerial meeting of the WTO, tenth session of the UNCTAD, and various meetings of the World Bank, World Economic Forum, and the International Monetary Fund. In many quarters, the protests were termed as backlash against unregulated globalisation. Often they were results of unsolicited marriage between not only the baptists (who are concerned with the plight of the poor) and bootleggers (who are calling for protectionism) but a convergence in thinking among extreme left as well as right. The net losers in this game are poor countries, who do not have much voice in international trade and economic policy making arena.

Contextually speaking, it is important to note that all estimates show that Africa is going to be the biggest loser in the new world trade order. OECD has estimated that their net annual losses could be $2.6bn by the year 2002. Africa will loose heavily through erosion of preferences by an average of 30 percent. Exports of tropical products from the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific) would be the heaviest losers, by as much as 51 percent. During 1980-94, sub-Saharan Africa’s terms of trade collapsed by 30 percent, while that in developed economies rose by 14 percent.

Furthermore, in its "Least Developed Countries 1999 Report", UNCTAD pointed out that whilst the 1980s were dubbed the "lost decade" for developing countries in general and least developed countries (LDCs) in particular, the 1990s have become, for LDCs, the decade of increasing marginalisation, inequality, poverty and social exclusion. The UNCTAD report said that in 1998 although the decline in overall economic growth in Africa was marginal, sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to 33 LDCs (out of a total number of 48 LDCs), suffered a decline in aggregate growth from 3.4 percent in 1997 to 2.1 percent in 1998.

Fostering Equity & Accountability in the Trading System (FEATS) is the title of the CUTS-CITEE’s on-going programme on international trade and economic policy issues. The sense of FEATS is manifest in its name and acronym.

The programme has started in 1998. The purpose is to create and build long-term capacity of Southern civil society groups to address the issues of and the complex linkages between trade and development from a Southern perspective and through South-South cooperation. Under this programme, activities being carried out of Jaipur resource centre are training and networking, advocacy and dialogues, policy analyses, information dissemination and outreach etc. These activities are conducted at national, regional (South Asia) and international levels.

After two years of implementation, in January 2000, the staff members of the Jaipur resource centre did an internal evaluation of the programme through individual and then consolidated SLOT (strengths, limitations, opportunities and threats) analysis. Staff members felt that the work out of Jaipur resource centre is shaping up well, and CUTS-CITEE should endeavour to consolidate its activities under the broader perspective of South-South cooperation by establishing its presence in anglophone Africa, which will cover eastern and southern African countries to begin with and then gradually expand the work programme into other African countries. The members of CUTS-CITEE’s International Advisory Board gave the same advice. Thus, the results of external as well as internal evaluation of the FEATS programme call for an expansion of its geographical outreach to cover eastern and southern African countries by setting up a resource centre in that region.

Core grant for the current work programme of FEATS is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, USA; Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Germany (through New Delhi office); HIVOS, The Netherlands (through Regional Office South Asia, Bangalore, India); International Development Research Center, Canada, MISEREOR, Germany, and Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.

The purpose of expanding the geographical outreach of the existing activities of FEATS is to build capacity of civil society representatives and officials at the national as well as sub-national levels so that they are better equipped to understand the nuances of the international trading and economic system. Another purpose is to concretise, expand and then consolidate South-South civil society cooperation on trade and development issues by establishing bridges between South Asia, eastern and southern Africa and the international trade community.

The uniqueness of the programme is expansion and consolidation of a similar and successful model of civil society initiative in the area of trade and economic policy making from one part of the world to the other, i.e. from South Asia to eastern and southern African countries. These two regions have similarities in many respects, including those in terms of poverty, inequality, economic marginalisation, ignorance about trade and economic policy making among the civil society representatives and civil servants etc. A logical framework analysis has been prepared.

The FEATS programme has the following goals:

To enable, empower and facilitate civil society representatives in developing countries to promote equity and accountability in the international trading and economic system ushered in by the WTO through:

 

training, networking and advocacy on the issues emanating from the new system in their national as well as regional contexts,

analysing the non-transparent structures in their governments and inter-governmental agencies, and

informing and educating people on its implications, and conveying their concerns and views to national and international levels.

 

To create an informed society through:

 

empowerment of people and civil society representatives, and thus,

catering for transparency and accountability in the international trading and economic system.

 

To promote cooperation among developing countries as well as equity between and among them and developed countries through:

 

facilitating interaction among government officials and civil society representatives,

enhancing international cooperation through exposure visits, lobbying, and conducting informed debate at appropriate fora.

 

Many developing countries did not carry out any kind of national evaluation or consultation during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, while their people were also in the dark, and in some places very agitated. This is especially true for countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There were protest marches in many countries in the context of agriculture, patents etc. The issue has not yet died down as new protests were witnessed at the time of the Seattle ministerial meeting of the WTO, as well as on the fringes of other meetings of international financial institutions.

However, the new protests are unique in one sense. It is more and more likely that the results of these protests may ultimately result in net loss for developing and least developed countries, as these protests are increasingly calling for protectionism in the west. There is, however, no gainsaying of the fact that there are many civil society groups in the west who are sympathetic to the plight of sub-Saharan African countries.

At the same time, some welcome changes with respect to participation of civil society representatives on issues of national interest are visible. For example, in the Seattle ministerial meeting of the WTO, civil society representatives were part of many countries’ (viz. Kenya, Uganda) delegations. Furthermore, in Kenya and Uganda representatives from consumer organisations are included in the National NGO Committees, whereas in Zambia there is one civil society representative in the National Economic Advisory Council.

1. On specific issues, FEATS programme is pulling together various studies being done, draft fact sheets and circulate them to the civil society for better understanding and advocacy with their governments and inter-governmental organisations so as to reflects their concerns better. Other than that, on specific issue of engaging civil society representatives in the decision-making process of the governments, FEATS has been trying to build coalition with its network partners and media to advocate with governments and inter-governmental organisations for increased transparency and accountability in the decision-making.

2. In South Asia, the programme is successful in the sense of getting civil society representatives involved with the decision-making process of the governments. For example, CUTS is a member of the high-powered National Advisory Committee on International Trade, chaired by the Indian minister for commerce and industry, Expert Group on Trade and Competition Policy. In Nepal, ProPublic, a network part of South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics & Environment, has been invited to prepare papers for helping the Nepalese government in their process of becoming member of WTO.

The negotiations on built-in agenda at the WTO have already started. These include agriculture, services and intellectual property rights agreements; all of them are important for eastern and southern African countries. There is also a likelihood of the launch of a new round of comprehensive trade negotiations, which will be concluded within a limited timeframe, with issues banged into the negotiating tables in an early harvest kind of framework.

Whatever be the nomenclature, development round or millennium round, the process of its launching would start once the US presidential election is over and China accedes to the WTO. Normally, it takes two to three years to arrive at consensus among members on terms of reference for a new round.

Thus, there is some time to prepare the eastern and southern African countries’ positions as regards to not only the built-in agenda but also possible new issues to be discussed during the new round.

A positive multilateral trade and development agenda for these countries will require a continuous elaboration. It has also been observed at the ministerial meetings of the WTO that many developing countries were dependent upon the civil society to garner crucial information as well as opinions to articulate in the public forum.

Another necessity for a positive trade agenda is that the impact of regional and sub-regional groupings on accelerating the trade among countries of central and southern Africa has in most cases been limited. This reflects, in contrast to the situation in Europe, South America, the absence of complementarities within the group of countries and the historical orientation of their trade towards the markets in developed countries. This suggests that a positive agenda for multilateral trade needs to be complemented by other measures of cooperation like intra-regional preferential/free trade.

1. FEATS has been doing this precisely in a limited but effective way by providing the civil society groups of the South with the know-how (analyses, information and collated data) and the do-how (transfer of advocacy and dialogues skills) that they require to inform people and advocate with their governments.

2. In 1996-97, CUTS-CITEE organised four policy dialogues with representatives of the civil society, academia, media and the government to build consensus on issues of India’s interest. This consultation process held before and after the Singapore ministerial meeting of the WTO had resulted in an "Agenda for India at the WTO: Need to be Proactive". This document has become a good reference material for both the civil society and the bureaucracy to understand the complexities of international trade policy. It has also created transparency in government’s approach. Many NGOs from other countries have requested and been supplied with this document, which they have used for their own advocacy and networking.

It is important for the civil society representatives of the South to understand the geopolitics and the art and science of trade negotiations because trade negotiations will be continuing. This is not only because of the built-in agenda (like the negotiations on agriculture, services and TRIPs agreements) but also because of initiatives in the new areas, like investment and competition policy issues, government procurement, trade and labour standards etc. The experience of WTO ministerial conferences suggests that developing countries will continue facing new negotiating challenges in the WTO forum.

Thus, unless the civil society representatives and officials at the national and sub-national levels know about the issues which may come up as well as the art of negotiations, it will be difficult for them to create an informed society as well as devising possible regional strategies to face those challenges.

1. On a continuing basis, the FEATS programme is conducting training workshops for the civil society representatives and civil servants of South Asia. This is to enable them to understand the political economy htmlects of trade policy, emerging issues and the praxis of negotiations. Training workshops are designed in such a manner that they enable the participants to facilitate information dissemination and dialogues within their respective constituencies.

2. CUTS has been conducting training workshops for civil society representatives of South Asia on trade and development issues since 1994.

3. In South Asia, the FEATS programme has a comprehensive training and networking component. Furthermore, in 1999, two training workshops were organised under the broad framework of South-South civil society cooperation on trade and investment issues. While the first one was organised at Jaipur, India in July 1999, the second one was at Arusha, Tanzania in October 1999.

The overall objective of training and networking is to provide opportunities and exposures to representatives of civil society, civil servants and media persons of eastern and southern African countries on current issues of international trade and economic system through structured training workshops which will be addressed by experts and GATT/WTO practitioners.

The second objective is to offer internships for African civil society representatives at the Jaipur centre of CUTS-CITEE and in Geneva, Switzerland as a hands-on training exercise. This will not only enhance their skills but also cooperation and networking strengths of concerned NGOs.

The third objective is cooperation, i.e. exchange of ideas and collaboration on organising events with other NGOs and inter-governmental organisations such as WTO and UNCTAD.

Regarding methodology of organising training and networking activities, it is to be noted that CUTS has been a premier training and networking organisation in India, South Asia and at the international level for the civil society representatives, civil servants and media persons. It has built-up good resources, the know-how and do-how, and in-house capacity to conduct trainings and organise networking in various modes, sizes and forms. Furthermore, never in its more than 17 years of history, has CUTS conducted trainings and organised networks for the sake of doing/organising them. All trainings and networking activities are related with concerned upstream and downstream activities of the organisation. And, each event has resulted in concrete outcomes for doing follow-up work, be it advocacy, further networking, or action research.

Another crucial element of the training process in the area of international trade and economic policy is formulation of a scientific questionnaire for homework to be done by the participants, which is then graded by resource persons. This process also has the benefit of providing opportunities to participants to network among themselves and with resource persons, during and after the event, thus adding value and strength to their capacities.

The same methodology will be applied while conducting trainings and organising networking among the civil society representatives, civil servants and media persons of east and southern African countries.

It is therefore proposed to do four training workshops in a gradual manner over a period of three years. In the first and third year, one training workshop will be organised, while in the second year the number of workshops will be two. The subjects will be chosen as per the needs of the participants and resource persons will be invited from among experts of the region who are dealing with trade and economic policy issues as well as from governments and inter-governmental organisations. Secondly, civil society representatives from network partners will be send to Geneva-based organisation(s) or to the Jaipur resource centre of CUTS-CITEE for internships.

As another facet of networking and cooperation, an advisory board comprising experts from the region with different perspectives will be formed. The proposed board will guide the activities of the Africa Resource Centre and will advise on its priorities. The board, consisting of eight members, will meet at least once in a year. The three African members of the International Advisory Board of CUTS-CITEE, Profs. Jhtmler A. Okelo and Yash Tandon, Ms Beatrice Chaytor and Mr. Pradeep S. Mehta, Secretary General of CUTS, will be ex-officio members of the board. The rest of the members will be selected from among experts of the region.

The overall objective of advocacy is to seek changes at the appropriate levels and quarters, which are necessary to promote equity and accountability in the international trade and economic system through targeted lobbying and information sharing.

The overall objective of dialogues is to improve the general understanding of issues relating to international trade and economic policy among the civil society representatives, civil servants and media persons.

Such activities are also to be used for capacity building of civil society representatives by providing them with the opportunities to participate and learn.

Advocacy will be conducted at two levels: national and international. The national level advocacy programme will build upon the networking with government officials. For the purpose of international advocacy, civil society representatives will be taken to Geneva at the time of key WTO/UN meetings and negotiations so as to lobby at inter-governmental organisations for their country as well as regional concerns. The reason for sending civil society representatives to Geneva is that the city is the main centre of activities related to trade and development issues, with headquarters of inter-governmental organisations like WTO, UNCTAD, ILO etc situated there.

The dialogues programme will consist of organising seminars at national and regional levels and conference at Geneva. These meetings will discuss trade and economic policy issues concerning eastern and southern African countries.

In the second and third year of the programme, national seminars will be organised in different countries of the region. The purpose of the national seminars is to arrive at a proactive trade agenda for the concerned countries and based on that, formulate similar agenda for other countries of the region.

A regional seminar will be organised during the third year of the programme. Its objective would be to discuss trade and economic policy issues in the multilateral context, but from regional perspectives.

While national and regional seminars are necessary for discussing relevant trade and development issues, but they are not sufficient to discuss the concerns of African countries under overall perspectives. This is because even when individual missions of these countries are doing their best to place their concerns at WTO meetings in Geneva, more often than not they are unable to cope with the pressure of too many things happening with too little time to give proper attention.

Moreover, they are handicapped by shortages of staff and many of them do not have their missions at Geneva, and working out of Brussels missions. Therefore, in the second year of the programme, a three-day comprehensive conference will be organised in Geneva by involving trade diplomats from developed as well as developing countries. The preparation for the conference will began in the first year itself. In the third year a follow-up conference will be organised.

This is absolutely necessary for engaging people to understand ground realities in Africa from civil society’s perspectives and what steps are required to reverse the trend of getting marginalised in the international trading and economic system. This will be a unique opportunity for trade diplomats of African nations to voice their concerns in a comprehensive manner.

CUTS has good experience in organising dialogues at national, regional and international levels.

In November 1997, CUTS-CITEE organised an international symposium on "International Trade System: Issues for Developing Countries". Over 250 persons including the trade community in Geneva participated in this important which led to better understanding of the future negotiations which are likely to be launched as millennium round or development round.

At the regional level, CUTS in association with SAWTEE has been organising events since 1994. In January 2000, it has organised a meeting of the civil society representatives of South Asia at New Delhi as part of the preparation for the tenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, held in Bangkok, Thailand in February 2000.

The first objective is to inform, educate and provoke debate on issues of trade and development and economic equity, while the second one is to enhance institutional responsiveness and accountability by intervening in their activities through various forms of information dissemination.

As part of these activities, a quarterly newsletter will be produced. The likely topics to be covered are economic issues, trade, investment, competition, development, environment & economics etc. Regional news items will be given preference in the newsletter. This will be the flagship product of the Africa Resource Centre.

Since 1997, CUTS-CITEE has been regularly producing its quarterly newsletter, Economiquity. It has been highly praised for its content and coverage.

Secondly, in the first two years four reader-friendly briefing papers on trade and economic issues pertaining to African issues will be produced. While in the third year, two such papers will be produced. Apart from targeted distribution, these papers will be used for miscellaneous advocacy.

Since 1995, CUTS has been producing reader-friendly briefing papers. Till date, 53 briefing papers are published. These papers are very popular among civil society representatives all over the world as well as in the trade community.

Furthermore, in order to reach out successfully, dynamic databases are created and maintained. Also, the activities carried out of the Africa Resource Centre will be posted onto the CUTS web site, cuts.org.

In qualitative terms, the FEATS programme endeavours to:

Enable, empower and facilitate civil society representatives to analyse, articulate and advocate on South-South cooperation on trade and development at appropriate fora;

 

Promote equity between and among the developed and developing countries through training and networking, advocacy and dialogues, and information dissemination and outreach; and

 

Create an informed society and thus enhancing transparency and accountability in the international trading and economic system.

 

In concrete terms, the following outcomes are expected:

Nomination of civil society representatives into the national advisory committee on international trade.

Nomination of civil society representatives in the official delegation of countries of the region in important international meetings, like the ministerial meeting of the WTO, quincentennial session of UNCTAD etc.

Lobbying visits to Geneva and internships for civil society representatives.

High-level participation of trade diplomats in Geneva conference and documentation and follow-up of the outcome of the conference.

Timely publication of newsletters and briefing papers and their targeted distribution.

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