Resources

This background note aims to identify organisations that are working to influence policy and build capacity around pro-poor trade in Latin America. This mapping provides an important baseline for the work of Comercio y Pobreza en Latinoamérica (COPLA, www.cop-la.net), a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on trade, poverty and social exclusion in Latin America, and may also be useful for others concerned with the pro-poor dimensions of Latin American trade and trade-related policies.

It would be a conceptual error to believe that the positive effects of trade could lead to the consecration of “trade” as a human right. Furthermore, on the contrary, crystallising “trade” as a human right could obstruct any positive effects.

Although trade does not currently enjoy the status of a human right, it is a tool of the market that has, historically, contributed to the wellbeing of humankind. In this way, bringing goods to market is a practice inherent to human nature that should not be obstructed. The lack of the concept of a ‘right to trade’ impedes individuals and/ or firms from exercising their civil rights and the right to be free from discrimination in access to national and international markets.

Trade, like income, has little intrinsic value to human well-being. But it is instrumental in achieving human rights, as it creates the means for providing additional resources; both at the individual level (through employment and expanded markets) and at the country level (through national expenditure and growth), which can then be harnessed to deliver rights. It is also worth noting that the relationship between trade and human rights is two-way; the realisation of rights can lead to increases in trade, and other aspects of development, as people’s human capital accumulates.

The suggestion that trade should be considered a human right is interesting, but to be useful it needs to be developed much further. In particular it is necessary to address two key questions: What favourable features of trade would considering it as a human right help to highlight? And is it possible to identify compliant and non-compliant behaviour?

There are many ways in which gender inequalities are present in society. Those inequalities, like any other, are intrinsically unfair and should be fought against. In this One Pager, we show how gender inequalities in the labour market determine poverty levels. We answer the following question: which aspect of gender inequalities should be considered priority in the design of public policies that seek to reduce gender inequalities and poverty?

SESSION 38
TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND POVERTY:
POLICY CHALLENGES FROM LATIN AMERICA

ORGANIZED BY:
CONSORCIO DE INVESTIGACIÓN ECONÓMICA Y SOCIAL (CIES, PERU)
CENTRO DE IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE POLÍTICAS PÚBLICAS PARA LA EQUIDAD Y EL CRECIMIENTO (CIPPEC, ARGENTINA)
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (ODI, UNITED KINGDOM)

Sub-theme 3: Ways forward for the multilateral trading system

Date: Thursday 25th September, 16:30 - 18:30

Abstract

For years, greens said adaptation—coping with climate change, rather than stopping it—was a bit like putting out a fire on the Titanic: desirable, no doubt, but the main thing was to change course. In July, however, a committee of America?s Senate set aside $20m for international adaptation efforts. That was peanuts; and nothing will come of it anyway because there is no comparable legislation in the House of Representatives. But it was the first time American legislators had showed willingness to put money into global efforts at coping.

In recent years, business has played a significant role in alleviating poverty, especially in sectors such as telecommunications, information technology, and microfinance. Certain initiatives in these sectors, such as microfinance in urban Latin America and wireless telecommunication in Asia, have yielded impressive results, creating unrealistic benchmarks against which other corporate programs are being judged. Although businesses have made significant contributions in some sectors, in many others they have been unable to “move the needle” on poverty.

The interest of the international development community in
‘Pro-Poor Growth’ appears to have waned.1 This Development
Viewpoint examines the pros and cons of adopting its most
popular replacement, ‘inclusive growth’.
A ‘pro-poor’ approach did have the advantage of focus:
concentrating on the most deprived. Judging progress involved attaching greater weight to the advance of the poor (e.g., “the incomes of the poor grew faster than those of the non-poor”).
But what about the great mass of the non-poor, many of whom

The growth of international trade and investment and the spread of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have resulted in increasing economic integration, affecting almost all nations of the world. This has brought about many changes in the economies of developing countries, including a move away from state-controlled enterprise. However, it has also made developing countries more vulnerable to new and potentially harmful types of anticompetitive business practices.

The single most important thing to understand about NAFTA is who are the winners and the losers. The international system is rigged to strengthen the hand of mega-corporations and weaken small farmers, workers, women producers, and migrants. These interconnected chicken anecdotes illustrate the realities of NAFTA.

Latin America’s MDG Progress on Gender Equality: Poor Women Still Lag Behind – One Pager # 49

DFID's experience with integrated approaches to support SME growth. It is a short presentation outlining the approach and some of the roles that donors can take.

This paper looks at the gendered effects of trade expansion in developing countries.

The paper explores the arguments for considering gender when negotiating and implementing trade agreements.

The main aim of the paper is to explore the female industrialists struggle for personal independence and entrepreneurial success in the aftermath of Peru’s adoption of Neo-liberal policies.

The authors study the manufacturing sector in urban Mexico during the trade liberalization period (1987-1993) in order to establish if there was a change in the gender wage gap after opening up to com

This USAID literature review explores the role of women in the economy and why the inclusion of gender issues is crucial to the success of economic development programs. The article focuses on the main constraints faced by women in the economy such as a lack of access and control of resources, time poverty, gendered labour markets and a lack of access to financial markets, among others.

Due to insufficient research on the different impacts of trade agreements on women and men and on the two-way relationship between gender and trade, the objective of this paper is to develop a tool fo

This briefing note starts out by looking at the recent evidence linking gender equality and growth before analysing policies necessary to promote growth and gender equality.

The main objective of the author is to outline the linkages between gender disparities and international trade in SSA and highlight the importance of evaluating trade through a gender lens.