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Global Civil Society Calls on Governments to Strengthen, Not Weaken, UNCTAD’s Role in Global Governance

Sign-on Letter with 38 International and 137 National Organizations from Across the Globe Delivered to Negotiators at UNCTAD XIII in Doha

Today, global civil society delivered a letter that calls on negotiators at the 13th quadrennial conference of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD XIII, to ensure that conference strengthens UNCTAD’s role on keys issues of global economic governance and financial reform.

The letter reads, in part:

Indian Farmers Oppose Peace Clause on G 33 Proposal in WTO and Call for Permanent Solution

Alarmed over mounting international pressure and the “take it or leave it” interim text on the peace clause solution on the G-33 proposal being considered for the 9th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC9), 3-6 December 2013, Indian Farmers has called on the Government of India to reject the current PC proposal and demanded a permanent solution to protect farmers’ livelihoods and access to food for all.

US Civil Society letter to Froman: U.S. trade policy in WTO MC10 at Nairobi should enhance countries’ rights to feed their peoples

11 December, 2015
In a letter to USTR Michael Froman, US civil society groups urged US government to support a transparent and inclusive multilateral process to resolve these pressing issues. U.S. trade policy should enhance countries’ rights to feed their peoples. It should not advance negotiations that leave most countries out of decisions that they then may have to adopt as a fait accompli at a later time.

VIDEOS: International Delegates Presentations, G20 Counter-Summit, Russia


Presentations from a diversity of International Delegates to G20 Counter-Summit, on a variety of G20 related topics.

US Civil society call upon US Govt. to support G33 Food Security Proposal

26 November, 2013
In this letter to Ambassador Mike Froman, United State Trade Representative (USTR) and Ambassador Michael Punke Deputy USTR and Permanent Representative to the WTO, Civil society groups from US express dismay over over US opposition to G33 proposal and urged the US government to support the G33’s proposal to allow for greater public spending to ensure more stable food supplies and prices in developing countries

Letter to the Presidents and Heads of State: Latin America and the Caribbean

Your presence and the active participation of the governments that you head in this Conference, which will bring together all of the United Nations members states – the “G192” – are necessary in order to achieve urgent and concrete responses that are in keeping with the seriousness of the global systemic crisis now confronting humanity. A crisis unleashed in the center of the system of economic and political power whose unsustainable and irresponsible model of consumption and production continues to asphixiate the entire planet, deepening day after day the social, climate, food, and energy crises with untold consecuences for billions of people, nature, and indeed life itself.

NGOs Condemn the EU Press Release on TRIPS Extension for LDCs

21 June, 2013
On 11th June 2013, the WTO TRIPS Council took a decision (IP/C/64) to extend for a further 8 years, the flexibility of least developed country (LDC) Members under Article 66.1 to not apply the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement except for Articles 3, 4 and 5 (which concern national treatment and most-favored nation treatment). This decision was a compromise deal as the EU and US exerted intense pressure on the LDCs to accept conditionalities that are not in favour of the people in the LDCs.

No to Liberalization/Deregulation at WTO: Letter to G-20 Finance Ministers

13 April, 2011
14 April, 2011

Dear G-20 Finance Ministers:

As you gather in Washington, D.C. to address pressing issues facing the global economy, we call on you to safeguard governments’ ability to implement policies that will reestablish and maintain financial stability in the wake of the worst financial and economic crisis in decades.

 

Civil society protest at 10th WTO Ministerial Conference, Nairobi, 17 December 2015

Today, a group of civil society working together through the global Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network, present in Nairobi for the 10th Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), used the human amplification tactic of “Mike Check” to voice their concerns about the WTO negotiations. Civil society leaders demanded that no so-called “new issues” should be put on the agenda, particularly while the development mandate has not been concluded.

Press Release / G20 Counter-Summit Conclusions: "What We Need is System Change!"


Social movements and civil society organizations from different parts of the world have met on 3-4 September 2013 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on the eve of the G20 Summit. With the participation of more than 30 international delegates of world social movements, our G20 Counter-Summit was hosted by the Post-Globalization Initiative.

Five years after the financial meltdown, the G20 continues promoting failed neoliberal policies, forcing austerity measures in countries facing deep recession and social crisis. During this period a vast architecture of impunity was built to serve the interests of transnational capital.