Europe is negotiating new trade deals – economic partnership agreements – with African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries but it is choosing power politics over partnership.
As negotiations continued at the WTO in Geneva, international agency Oxfam said that developing countries must not be blamed for delay or possible breakdown of the talks.
The deal emerging in WTO talks has some serious flaws and falls far short of the pro-development reform that was originally promised, said international agency Oxfam today.
The refusal of the US to cut cotton subsidies that hurt West African farmers is a signal that they are not serious about living up to their development promises in trade talks
A new US offer on farm subsidies at the WTO in Geneva does not go nearly far enough and will not deliver the promised benefits for developing countries.
"How can we cope with this problem? Cotton prices are too low to keep our children in school, or to buy food and pay for health." Brahima Outtara, Burkina Faso.