WTO in Southern Africa

In the clinton administration one of the biggest reforms to global trade took place with the Uruguay Round.  Many South African countries took part in this in hope to help with reducing tariffs, and create reforms in areas such as standards, customs and intellectual property laws.  In order to implement this they under went massive amounts of training workers, purchasing equipment and legislative reforms.  Years have passed since the Uruguay Round act and still many of these “Southern African Developement Communities(SADC)” still are having trouble getting their economy underway.  They are countinuously struggling with keeping up adequate finances, institutional and technical capabilities.  Another factor that has slowed their economic growth, is that developed countries refuse to let these SADC’s participate in Uruguay Round negotiations.  Limiting the ability for them to engage in global trade.  The WTO rules on their custom valuation, intellectual property rights, and sanitary measures.  Leaving the SADC’s in between a rock and a hard spot when entering the market of global trade. 

Africa

The main place I want to focus my attention on is southern Africa. One of the many problems villages and people in this area are facing right now is the continued influx in the privatization of water. According to the World Bank and IMF water should be treated as an economic commodity. They believe, in principle, the African governments that provide water through public structures should withdrawal subsidies that make water a human right and impose full cost recovery. This is a problem that is beginning to plague Southern Africa, seeing how private companies have little incentive to expand water access to people who can’t afford it. At the turn of this past century water meters began to be installed throughout South Africa preventing access to safe water for people living in poverty there. This led to a massive cholera outbreak from drinking unclean water in over 100,000 people. I just wonder how something like this could happen when the South African Constitution declares that “everyone has the right to have access to sufficient water.”

The premise

The purpose of this blog is to take a look at societies in Southern Africa to see how government policies and regulations leave so many of the worlds population below the poverty line.  Recently in Ces440 we have been reading a book titled Unsustainable.  It talks about the many different affects global warming is having on our environment and the people in it.  If this book makes one strong point at all it is the fact that even though most of the environmental pollution is coming from the wealthy and established industries in leading countries thoughout the world, its devestating affects are being put squarely on the shoulders of the poor and deprived.  This is an everlasting cycle that should be looked at and accounted for.  The abuse and neglect of the poor is an on going situation that has been going on since the begining of time, and even in todays society we cant seem to get away from it.    

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