|
It
has hardly been a decade
since India began its
economic liberalisation
and reforms. Since, then
Globalisation with all
its connotations has
been at the centre stage
of a myriad of
controversies. Yet,
Globalisation has come
to stay as the
underlying principle for
future policies of an
integrated world
economy. It’s now up
to India to ensure that
the benefits trickle
down to the poorest of
the poor.
|
|
As
the 5th WTO Ministerial
Summit to be held in
Cancun draws closer,
governments around the
world are gearing up to
meet the negotiating
deadlines. The summit
becomes more crucial as
China has joined the WTO
and 30 other countries
queue up to join, making
it a widely accepted
forum for international
trade negotiations.
Several issues on the
agenda are likely to be
discussed.
Interestingly, there is
hardly any consensus on
issues like, Dispute
settlements, Trade
related intellectual
property rights and
above all, Multilateral
trading rules.
Developing countries
seem to be veering
towards taking a
slightly more rigid
stance on critical
issues, because WTO is
considered to lack
transparency when it
comes to formulation of
strategies and
proposals. Some quarters
would even go to the
extent of saying that
WTO doesn’t provide a
level playing field to
all its members.
Whether
Cancun succeeds in
adopting the
multilateral framework
for trade and investment
or not is not as
significant as the
question of how to
tackle the challenges
and maximize the gains
from globalization for
the benefit of the
poorest of poor. The
onus lies on the members
from the developing
countries to chalk out
strategies to tackle the
challenges head on and
to help benefits trickle
down to people, who give
development its true
meaning.
India
on its part has taken
the WTO summit in
earnest and invited
UNCTAD to assist the
government and other
stakeholders in
assessing the impacts
and opportunities
presented by
globalisation. The
government of India
feels that there is a
need to study
globalisation in its
entirety – Global
trends in trade,
correlation between
liberalization and
reforms and overall
development;
Socio-economic impact of
trade reforms, specific
sectors like traditional
knowledge agriculture
and food security
environment and TRIPS;
Impact of WTO agreements
on SSIs; Trade
facilitation;
Development box; Dispute
settlement; Regional
trade agreements; and
Investment and
competition.
To
this end, The United
Nations Conference on
Trade And Development (UNCTAD)
has launched a project
funded by Department for
International
Development (DFID) to
assess impacts and
opportunities for India
in trade and
globalisation.
The
indicative budget for
the entire project
period is US$8,048,140
towards the project
titled as
"Strategies and
Preparedness for Trade
and Globalisation in
India", is a five
years long initiative to
assist the Indian
government – Ministry
of Industry and Commerce
– in producing
submissions that are of
good technical quality
and represent the
social, economic and
environmental concerns
in the country. The
project will assist
trade negotiators,
policy-makers and other
stakeholders in
enhancing understanding
of the development
dimension of key trade
issues relating to the
work programme adopted
at the fourth WTO
Ministerial Conference
(Doha, November 2001).
There
is a need for Government
agencies, and private
institutions and civil
society organisation to
assess the impact of
global agreements on the
constituencies they
represent or the work
they do and review their
strategies accordingly.
This implies the need
for stakeholders to
build their
institutional and human
resource capacities so
as to gain from
globalisation; to
mitigate its’ negative
effects as well as
influence the planning
and policy-making
processes.
Therefore,
the project will
initiate studies on
selected issues of key
interest to the poor and
assist India in
identifying its
interests and
formulating negotiating
proposals to increase
bargaining capacity at
WTO. The UNCTAD project
will aim at creating
"Centres of
Excellence" and
strengthening academic
institution like WTO
cells. Workshops would
be organised to promote
multi-stakeholder
dialogue and giving a
broad base to the agenda
of Globalisation in
India. The thrust would
be on initiating a
meaningful discourse
with key stakeholders,
including state
governments, to identify
the development
implications of global
agreements and
facilitating exchange of
experiences and lessons
learned in different
states of India.
UNCTAD
has identified the
following areas that
need to be addressed on
a priority basis:
|
|
