Geneva — As the gulf widens between rich and poor, how can exports reduce poverty in the developing world?
That is what a four-day meeting of the International Trade Centre and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation, from Wednesday 27 September to Saturday 30 September, will deliberate. The 160 participants from 35 countries and 15 United Nations and international organizations include ministers and high officials from developing countries such as Bolivia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India and Nepal, representatives of major international agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, of non-governmental organizations like Oxfam, of industrialized nations like Germany, Norway and Sweden, chambers of commerce, export trade specialists, and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Trade in goods and services has grown exponentially, from $2.3 trillion in 1980 to over $12.6 trillion in 2005. Some have benefited, but the very poorest have not. The world's 50 least developed countries – home to one in five of the world's population – have not been part of this boom. In 2005 their share of trade was 0.6% (in 1980 it was 0.7%.) Even in more advanced developing countries, the gap is widening between the haves and have-nots.
Yet there are cases where the world's poorest people are trading their way out of poverty. The event, the Executive Forum on National Export Strategy, looks at how to make the exception the rule.
The Forum will be opened by Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development at 3 p.m. on Wednesday 27 September at the Hotel Crowne Plaza in Berlin.
ITC's new top official, Patricia Francis, a Caribbean national, is particularly sensitive to developing country problems and aspirations.
"I do not see export trade as a panacea for abolishing poverty overnight, but I do believe that by increasing exports either to the developed world or by encouraging South-South trade we can certainly reduce poverty," says Ms Francis.
"There are quite a few striking examples of this. In Brazil, tourism has become a new source of exports for eight very poor communities where more than 7,000 people are now working with hotels in the country's largest resort, selling food, clothing and artisanal products and recycling organic waste in an environmentally sound way. Hundreds have found jobs and more than 10,000 impoverished inhabitants in neighbouring villages are expected to find employment."
She also points to a successful development in Cambodia in the moribund traditional silk industry which has grown in four years into a $4 million export business. In five more years Cambodian silk exports may be worth $10 million. Several thousand poor Cambodian silk yarn farmers and weavers will have been lifted out of poverty. Thriving exports of organic Indian spices have had a similar success.
"Unfortunately, these success stories, and many others, have not created a critical mass capable of making a big dent in nation-wide poverty throughout the developing world," Ms Francis concedes. "The Berlin Executive Forum is aimed at explaining why this is so, and, more important, what to do about it. We need concrete suggestions for going forward."
The broad yet specific agenda shows what ITC hopes the meeting will accomplish. A wide range of sessions are running in parallel, covering topics such as land reform, the role of women entrepreneurs, finance, technology, affirmative action, NGO-business-government partnerships, fair trade, corporate social responsibility and more.
In addition to the Minister and Ms Francis, speakers at the opening session will include Valentine Rugwabiza, Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Dirk Bruinsma, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
"Through this Forum," says Ms Francis, "we also hope to raise awareness on using exports to help meet the poverty-reduction targets of the UN's Millennium Development Goals."
The Geneva-based ITC is the technical cooperation agency of UNCTAD and WTO for business aspects of international trade development.
Describing ITC, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called it "unique. It has managed to balance the commercially inspired demands of its clients in the business sector with the wider imperatives of sustainable development and poverty reduction."
